


Sleeping Dragons Ep 02 - A Big, Fat Torchwood Wedding

by Soledad



Series: Sleeping Dragons [3]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Torchwod
Genre: Awesome Toshiko Sato, Domestic bliss Torchwood-style, F/M, Hell Hath No Fury Like A Woman Scorned, M/M, Nostrovites, The bad penny keeps turning up, Vintage wedding dresses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-25
Updated: 2016-07-25
Packaged: 2018-07-26 16:09:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 72,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7580986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soledad/pseuds/Soledad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Everything Changes” ended with Emma and Rhys announcing their upcoming wedding. This story starts off a couple of months later, with just that wedding taking place. With Rhys’ mother organizing things, and considering that this is Torchwood, things naturally would take an interesting turn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
**CHAPTER 01**

Mike Halloran was a man of simple tastes. Always had been. Welsh to the bone, he enjoyed a good rugby game (although he hadn’t actually _played_ it since high school), a beer or two with his mates in the local pub, having picnics on the seaside, going to the cinema for monster movies and the music of local bands playing in pubs. He liked his job at _Harwood’s_ , and his big dream was to visit New York one day.

But first and foremost, he loved his wife. His beautiful Beth, whom he called Cygnet for her resemblance of a graceful black swan and whom he’d just married half a year ago. To tell the truth, he still couldn’t understand why Beth would choose _him_ , of all people. While not exactly an ugly person, he wasn’t really a looker, either; in his early thirties, rather ordinary-looking with his slightly pudgy face, dark blond hair and blue eyes. Just your friendly neighbourhood guy.

Beth, on the other hand, though a few years older than him, was a real beauty. She had the regal carriage and the dignity of a queen, out of some ancient legend. The Queen of Saba must have looked like her – small wonder that King Solomon had fallen for her. 

And Beth was a good person, too, with a heart big enough to take in every stray cat and to give a few coins each homeless junkie begging for money on the streets. Not to mention donating as much money as she could afford to various projects in Nigeria; the country her parents had come from. The parents she had lost eight years ago due to a freak car accident.

They had met at work first, at _Harwood’s_ , where Mike had worked as an assistant manager first; then, after Rhys Williams had got fired, as manager. Beth had worked there as a temp, typing and filing most of the time. When Alison, Rhys’ secretary had been promoted to the PA of Mr. Harwood Sr, she had become Mike’s secretary.

They married two months later.

There had been much talk, of course. People generally would not give their marriage more than three months. Well, after twice so long a time, they were still together and still very much in love. They had even discussed having children but postponed it until they had saved a bit of money. Besides, they were still young; they still had time for having children later. First, they wanted to build a home together.

Buying the flat at 114 Brodsky Gardens, four months ago, was the first step towards that, and they were both very happy with their place. They’d spent weeks with hunting down the right sort of furniture – something they both liked. Beth had a soft spot for rattan and African art, and so their home, while cosy and warm, gained a certain artistic flair that Mike found very attractive. He did not understand much about art, himself, but he knew he liked what Beth had done with the place. It was small, but it was _theirs_ , and it would be enough even with a child or two in the future.

The only cloud on the horizon of their happiness was Mr. Harwood Jr: a notorious womanizer who, after his torrid affair with Gwen Cooper – the very thing that had ultimately led to both her and her ex-fiancé, Rhys Williams, lose their jobs – was looking out for fresh prey. And Mr. Harwood Jr was not the man who’d take _No_ for an answer. He pretty much considered all female employees his possession, and if someone wasn’t inclined to service him, they soon found themselves first mobbed and then fired.

Although being too willing – or even clingy – could lead to the same results, as Gwen Cooper’s example had proved. She’d tried her best to get Mr. Harwood Jr marry her – even going as far as telling everyone (including their senior boss) about her affair with him. Well, it hadn’t worked out as she’d hoped. Mr. Harwood Jr had dropped her faster than a hot potato, declaring loudly – and quite publicly – that she was a nutjob with adhesive pads, and if she thought that being good in the sack would make her suitable wife material, she was sorely mistaken.

In the end, Mr. Harwood Sr had grown tired of the scandal and fired both her and poor Rhys who’d brought her to the firm in the first place. The reputation of the firm was very important for the old gentleman; it was bad enough that he could not bring his own son to consider how much his behaviour harmed it.

Beth, of course, hard no intention of becoming Mr. Harwood Jr’s shag-of-the-month. So she and Mike started looking for job offers in the newspapers before the actual mobbing would begin.

Unfortunately, job-hunting turned out to be much harder than they had expected. After three weeks and dozens of applications, Beth still hadn’t gotten as much as a job interview, and they were beginning to despair. They needed _both_ paychecks to keep the flat and pay back their loans. Beth was seriously considering taking a job way below her qualifications, just to be able to leave _Harwood’s_ on her own terms.

At the beginning of the fourth week, Mike took a break and went to a nearby pub he hadn’t had the time to check out yet. He just wanted to shut off the rest of the world for a while, without running into anyone familiar. It was a reasonable expectation, considering that they hadn’t really made any friends in their new neighbourhood yet. So he could hope to be left alone with his thoughts and worries.

He realized the epic failure of his plan when he spotted Rhys Williams, of all people, only two tables down the room. The man was with some mates, an all-male drinking company, and they were drinking rather heavily, as if they had something to celebrate. Something really good, by the high spirits they seemed to be in.

Rhys spotted Mike, too, and beckoned him to join them; which was the last thing Mike really wanted, but he knew better than argue with someone so obviously drunk. So he obediently picked up his beer and walked over to their table. There he was introduced to various people by the names of Andy, Mickey, Owen, Trevor and Marwyn. The last one was a young, blond bloke with a marked resemblance to Prince William; that one he already knew. It was Rhys’ best friend, by the bizarre nickname of Banana Boat.

“He’ll be my best man, too,” Rhys explained, thumping his best friend on the back.

Mike almost choked on his beer. “What? You’re marrying that slut; after all she’s done to you?”

It was now his turn to be thumped on the back by Rhys, which his ex-colleague did with enthusiasm.

“Not Gwen!” the weasel-faced man with the sour expression on his face – Owen, if Mike remembered correctly – explained. “He came to his senses and found himself something with a little more… _class_.”

“Look at the pot telling the kettle,” the tall, curly blond young man by the name of Andy muttered. 

Owen shot him an unfriendly look. “I never intended to _marry_ her; and if I’m not mistaken, neither did _you_.”

Mike was grateful that he hadn’t tried to drink again yet. Apparently, Rhys ex-fiancée had gotten around a lot within their circle of friends.

“So, are you having a bachelor party or whatnot?” he asked, just to change the topic, because Rhys seemed really uncomfortable, which he didn’t deserve. “And who’s the bride?”

“This ain’t the real bachelor party yet,” the black bloke with the short-cropped hair explained. “That would include our bosses, who’re in London right now. We’re just… practicing for the grand event. The girls, _including_ the bride, are running the shop in our absence.”

“At _this_ time?” Mike wondered; after all, it was after 8 pm.

The black bloke, whom the others called Mickey Mouse, shrugged. “It’s only fair; we’ll pull an all-nighter when she’ll be having her hen night.”

“You work at night, too?” Mike asked, feeling a bit sorry for them.

“Well, the labs can’t shut down for the night,” Trevor, a bald bloke with wire-rimmed glasses and the unmistakable looks of a lab rat replied. “Some investigations run for twenty-four hours or longer. We work in three shifts, so everything is covered.”

“Barely,” Andy added. “Which is why our bosses are looking for new personnel right now.”

Mike frowned and looked at Marvyn and Banana Boat who hadn’t contributed anything to the conversation yet. Banana Boat shrugged.

“Don’t look at me. I’m just an old mate of Rhys's; and so is Daff. We don’t work with them.”

“Wouldn’t do that for the world,” Marvyn added darkly, but nobody seemed to take him seriously. In fact, there were rather unmanly giggles all around the table; doubtlessly because of the amount of alcohol that had already been consumed.

Mike found those answers a little suspicious. “Are you working for the police now?” he asked Rhys; for some reason, that question made Andy giggle even louder. “Or SOCO or whatnot?” The fact that Trevor had mentioned labs that needed to run non-stop justified the questions; none of the others really looked like scientists.

“No,” Trevor replied lightly. “We work for Torchwood.”

“Torchwood,” Mike repeated blandly, hair-raising stories he’d been hearing all his life resurfacing in his memory. 

Practically everyone in Cardiff knew about Torchwood (it was kind of an urban legend), even little old ladies who met Blowfish in sports cars at night. There were very few people actually _known_ to be working for the mysterious organization, though. Mike shook his head in amazement.

“You, Rhys Williams, work for bloody _Torchwood_ now. The very organization you’ve been cursing for at least a year, for eating up Gwen’s time, so that she was practically never at home.”

Rhys nodded and giggled. “Yep. Sweetest vengeance I could have thought of.”

“And when, exactly, did you become a secret agent?” Mike asked.

“I didn’t,” Rhys shrugged. “I’m the general support bloke, responsible for getting the others fed, organized and delivered to the places where they ought to be. It’s not that different from working for _Harwood’s_ – and it pays better.”

“So you’re not carrying a gun, running around and dealing with weird shit?” Mike clarified.

Rhys shook his head. “Nah, that’s their job,” he waved in the direction of Andy, Mickey Mouse and Owen. “ _My_ job is the logistics, and it’s work enough for one man, I tell you. A good thing that Emma works for Torchwood, too; I wouldn’t have had the time to actually _look_ out for a suitable bride.”

“What is _she_ doing?” Mike was definitely curious now.

“Administration,” Rhys answered simply. “She’s the secretary of the boss, and she helps me with the logistics.”

“That’s a lot for one person,” Mike said.

Rhys nodded. “Yeah, that’s true. We’re constantly looking for new personnel, but it isn’t easy to find someone who’d fit our requirements. What about you and Beth, though? Have you gotten used to my old job? It wasn’t an easy one, either.”

“That’s not the problem,” Mike admitted. “The problem is Mr Harwood Jr.”

“Oh, no!” Rhys understood the hint at once. “Is he after Beth now?”

“You have no idea,” Mike replied sourly. “Actually, if anyone, I guess you do. It’s gotten so bad lately that we started looking for a new job for Beth – but we haven’t had any luck so far.”

“Why not?” Rhys was surprised. “She was the best temp I’ve ever met; one hundred words a minute are an impressive achievement. And she’s good at spelling and grammar and all that stuff, not to mention well-organized…”

“But she’s also a newly-wed young woman, and people always suspect that such women would quit as soon as they get pregnant,” Mike reminded him. “And for the more mundane jobs she’s over-qualified. We haven’t even got an answer, positive _or_ negative, in three bloody _weeks_!”

“By the current unemployment level, it isn’t easy to find a job,” Mervyn said in understanding; then he looked at Rhys. “What about your organization, though? You’ve said yourself that you’re looking for new staff, and that Emma is overworked, doing the jobs of at least two people. Can’t you guys hire his wife?”

“It’s not that easy,” Trevor interfered. “Even though Rhys and Emma are working for logistics and administration, there’s a lot of confidential shit they get in touch every day. And it can be dangerous sometimes, even for them.”

“Dangerous in what way?” Mike asked, his initial excitement about Rhys probably being able to help Beth getting a new job deflating quickly. Trevor looked at him over the rim of his glasses.

“Ever heard about Canary Wharf?” he asked. 

Mike nodded. “Yeah; it was destroyed by terrorists, right?”

“I was there,” Trevor told him. “I’m one of the twenty-seven survivors, of over eight hundred people working there. _That_ was Torchwood London. Granted, Torchwood Cardiff never got involved in disasters of that magnitude, but we still deal with dangerous stuff. And you don’t have to work in the labs themselves to be at risk.”

“You’re still looking for new personnel, though,” Mervyn pointed out. “You’ll have to put _someone_ at risk in any case. And it’s not so as if you can advertise for Torchwood by telling the truth. Hell, you never even told _us_ the truth about your work at Torchwood.”

“Be glad he didn’t,” Mickey deadpanned. “We would have to kill you if he had.”

More inebriated giggles answered his comment; then Rhys looked at Mike, somewhat more seriously.

“I tell you what, mate; I’ll have our experts run a full background check on you and Beth,” seeing that Mike wanted to protest, he raised a hand. “I’m sorry, but that’s the minimal requirement before we’d even _consider_ hiring anyone. I don’t think either of you would have anything to hide, but if you do, our experts will find it. They’re the best. _If_ you turn out clean, I’ll talk to the boss, check Beth’s credentials and see if I can lay in a good word for her.”

“Jonesy would want to meet them before an official interview,” Trevor said. “He prefers an informal first meeting.”

Rhys nodded. “I know. Look, Mike, why don’t you two come to our wedding? That way, you can meet the bosses, no strings attached, see all the people Beth would be working with and decide if she wants to work for us in the first place.”

“Why wouldn’t she?” Mike asked in surprise.

The others grinned like one man. It was Mickey who finally answered. “Well, if she survives the first encounter with Captain Cheesecake, she’ll survive everything.”

Trevor cuffed him upside the head. “Shut up, Mickey Mouse, you’re scaring the man!” He turned to Mike. “Don’t worry. Captain Harkness tends to flirt with everything that breathes – and with a few things that don’t – but that’s just who he is.”

“Besides,” Owen added sourly, “he won’t risk making Teaboy mad at him – now that he’s _almost_ cajoled himself back into his good graces.”

“You should stop calling our boss Teaboy, you know,” Andy warned. “Or do you really want to test the limits of his patience?”

Owen just shrugged dismissively, apparently not concerned about that the least. Mike felt a little bit bewildered. Was that how the agents of a government organization should talk about their boss? But Rhys seemed fairly comfortable with the whole thing, and Mike had learned to trust Rhys’ ability to judge character back when they’d still been working together. If Rhys wasn’t bothered by all this, then it had to be acceptable.

“I’ll have to talk about this with Beth,” he said.

“Of course,” Rhys wrote several phone numbers on a paper napkin. “Call me. The one above is our landline – we live just a few streets from here – the one below my mobile phone. I’ll send you an invitation to the wedding – you still live at 114 Brodsky Gardens, I presume?” Mike nodded. “Then we’re almost neighbours. Work permitting, we could get together some time, even if the thing with the job won’t work. I’m sure Emma and Beth would get along just fine.”

Mike promised he would call them; then he paid for his drink and left for home, as it was getting late. And besides, he had a lot to discuss with Beth.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
When Doctor Thomas Milligan finally emerged from the operation room of the A&E, it was nearly two hours after the actual end of his shift. He was so tired he could barely walk. Having qualified as a surgeon and getting this position of an assistant surgeon at A&E was a great opportunity, as no-where else would he have the chance to treat so many very different injuries, assist to so many different operations. So he was still glad he’d got the job half a year ago, even if it paid considerably less than having a nice little practice in paediatrics would have. 

But it took the last ounce of energy out of him. The long working hours, the constant pressure, the responsibility… sometimes it was barely possible to deal with all that. And, of course, it made sheer impossible to have any kind of private life.

He hadn’t been surprised when Emilia decided that enough was enough and broke up with him. Though half a decade older, she was an attractive and highly successful therapist, who enjoyed a rich social life and rightly expected her partner to give her due attention. What good would a younger lover do to her when all he was able to do after a long shift was to fall onto the bed like a log and pass out?

And then, there were the dreams. Recurring dreams of fleeing across a desolate country, with a beautiful black woman, presumably also a doctor, pursued by flying metallic discs that could – and would – slice one to ribbons. Alive. Dreams that always ended with him being killed. Dreams from which he always woke up screaming and sweat-soaked and trembling. Which woman would put up with _that_ on the long run?

Emilia suspected that his mind was playing games with him, combining his hidden fears with some stupid horror flick or past-apocalyptic sci-fi film he’d seen, but Tom wasn’t so sure about that. The dreams almost felt like memories, even though he _knew_ they couldn’t be. Granted, he had seen a great deal of horrible things while working for _Doctors Without Borders_ in Africa, but nothing like _that_.

And he _would_ have remembered such an experience, had he had it. He didn’t exactly have total recall or an eidetic memory or whatever the shrinks liked to call it these days, but his memory was better than the average, especially when it came to minute details. It came in handy in his chosen work, as it helped recognizing the smallest symptoms of any possible disease, so he was fairly certain that his memory _wasn’t_ playing games with him. It had never done before.

Which didn’t explain where the dreams came from, of course. He’d tried a different way, googling all old schoolmates, fellow students and colleagues he had ever worked with, hoping to find the woman in his dreams. He’d tried to get access to the files of female patients he had treated – still nothing. And the dreams kept coming, so that by now he was positively afraid to go to bed; they were too frightening. He sometimes asked if he was slowly getting mad – and how long it would take until he made a fatal error in the OP and killed somebody due to the chronic lack of sleep.

His current living conditions didn’t help things, of course. He’d given up his flat before going to Africa, and since Emilia had thrown him out, he’d slept in the emergency doctor’s ready room in the hospital, so what little sleep he _could_ get was always interrupted. But that couldn’t be helped at the moment. He simply didn’t have the time to go flat-hunting.

He yawned and was heading to the shower when there was a knock on the door and Meagan, the head nurse of night shift looked in. “Doctor Milligan, you’ve got a visitor.”

“A visitor?” Tom replied in surprise. He _never_ had visitors; having spent the last two years in Africa and being new here, he didn’t know that many people. Unless…”Is it Doctor Fox?”

“No,” Meagan said. “It’s an elderly gentleman in a naval uniform. Quite handsome, too;” she added; she had a soft spot for older, more distinguished gentlemen. “I led him to the breakroom, it’s currently empty.”

“And he didn’t say who he was or what he wanted?” Tom asked, not having the faintest idea what this might mean.

Meagan shook his head. “No, doctor. Just that he needed to speak with you… and that it was of _some urgency_ – that’s how he phrased it.”

That sounded like a quote of an Agatha Christie novel, Tom found, and he grinned tiredly. Well, he could as well go and see what the old-fashioned gentleman wanted.

“Tell him I’ll be there in a moment,” he said, looking around for a clean white lab coat. It never hurt to make a good first impression.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
The man waiting for him in the breakroom looked like one of those stereotypical old colonels from an Agatha Christie novel indeed. He was tall, carrying himself very straight, with thick, curly grey hair, abundant, well-groomed sideburns and a prominent chin. He was wearing a blue naval uniform with more stripes on it than Tom had ever seen on any uniform, save for those of self-proclaimed African dictators. The multi-coloured ribbons on his chest revealed that were he wearing the medals themselves instead of just the ribbons, he would probably keel over from the weight of them. 

For all that he was obviously a Very Important Person™, he had a friendly enough manner, though.

“Doctor Milligan?” he asked, extending his hand to Tom. “I’m Commodore Harry Sullivan. But since we’re of the same trade, I say Doctor Sullivan would suffice.”

“ _Doctor_ Harry Sullivan?” Tom was shocked, but in a good way. “The chief medical officer of UNIT? The one who’d created the vaccine we saved millions of lives in Africa with? _That_ Doctor Sullivan?”

“Er, well, I suppose there isn’t any other by that name and reputation,” the naval officer replied, clearly embarrassed a little. “Now, you see, you don’t have to make such a big fuss about it. I was just doing my duty, after all.”

“You did far more than just your duty, Commodore, and everyone knows that,” Tom replied, still a little breathless in the presence of such a living legend. “What could I possibly do for you, then?”

“Oh, well, I should think it’s _me_ who could do something for _you_ ,” the commodore replied. “I’ve come to offer you a job.”

“I do have a job, Commodore,” Tom pointed out reasonably, although he did feel flattered by the offer. The Commodore waved off his protest.

“Blimey. There’s jobs and there’s jobs, and I say the one I’ve in mind for you would serve you better than your current one,” he gave Tom’s gaunt face a critical look. “I must say, doctor, you don’t look that grand. Too much work, too little sleep, isn’t it?”

“That’s A&E for you, sir,” Tom replied with a shrug. Sullivan nodded.

“Quite right, old chap, quite right. But with your skills and experience, there are places where you’d be of more use than here; _and_ working conditions would be more comfortable.”

“I’m not joining any military forces,” Tom said firmly. He was a pacifist at heart, which had cost him a lucrative job at the RAF right after graduation, but he stuck to his principles nonetheless.

“That won’t be necessary, you know,” the Commodore replied. “You’re making a fuss about nothing at all.”

“Then what _are_ we talking about, sir?” Tom asked, just a little impatiently, as exhaustion threatened to overwhelm him.

“Torchwood,” Sullivan answered simply. Tom frowned.

“Torchwood? But the Institute has been shut down after that terrorist attack two years ago, hasn’t it?”

That wasn’t exactly common knowledge, of course, but Emilia had been counselling some of the handful of survivors for years and felt like a failure when a few of them had committed suicide nonetheless.

“That was Torchwood London,” the Commodore explained. “I’m speaking of Torchwood Cardiff. Totally different branch and all.”

“ _Cardiff_?” Tom repeated. “You want me to move to _Cardiff_ , to work for some shadowy government agency, instead of helping people who actually _need_ help? You gotta be kidding, Commodore!”

Sullivan arched a thick grey eyebrow. “Oh, you’d think so, wouldn’t you? Well you’d be wrong, doctor. I assure you that by working for Torchwood, you’d be helping more people in a month than you can by working at A&E for a hundred years.”

“Yeah, sure…” Tom wasn’t buying it, despite the obvious seriousness of the older man. Sullivan sighed.

“Look, all this argumentation is pretty pointless, isn’t it? I’m just the messenger. If you wish to learn more about the offer, you ought to meet the Director of Torchwood and discuss matters with him.”

“I can’t just off and go to Cardiff!” Tom protested. “I’ve work to do here!”

“Well, it’s a jolly good thing, then, that Director Jones is visiting London at the moment, isn’t it?” Sullivan asked. “I say, I ought to be able to set up a meeting in the home of an old friend. Completely unofficially, of course.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Colonel Alan Mace was _not_ a happy man. He hadn’t been happy ever since he’d been transferred from the Tower of London base to this godforsaken outpost outside Cardiff six months ago. He looked out of the window of his office in disgust. Base! They called _this_ a base? It was nothing there but a grassy outside place with some brick buildings and a road leading to the security gate. And only a handful of soldiers, hiding behind their painfully inadequate security netting.

 _And_ the mineshaft below the base, of course. With the nuclear warheads sealed off in storage within. That’s what he’d become: the babysitter of nuclear warheads. After all that he’d done to save this ungrateful planet!

Just a short time ago, he’d been in charge of the British division of UNIT, replacing Colonel Brimmicombe-Wood in 2005. During the Sontaran crisis, he’d taken personal command over Operation Blue Sky. He’d been the one co-ordaining the UNIT counter-offensive to regain the ATMOS factory, having the soldiers rearmed with rad-steel coated bullets that, unlike copper ones, remained uneffected by the Sontaran’s negation field. He’d been the one to call in the _Valiant_ to clear the gas around the area.

Hell, he’d personally killed Skorr, the Sontaran commander, with a pistol! And what did he get for all his efforts? A disciplinary transfer to Cardiff, of all places!

And all that just because he’d happened to fall in love with one of his subordinates. Who, in turn, had happened to return his feelings and – after defeating the Sontarans – was impulsive enough to kiss him before all eyes.

That had been enough for the brass to condemn him. Saving the planet was apparently less important than violating the non-fraternization rule. Really, he sometimes wondered if UNIT had come with the rest of the world to the twenty-first century!

Marion had offered to quit service, so that the rule would no longer be of importance, but he wouldn’t have that. As a member of the Royal engineers, Captain Marion Price was too valuable for UNIT to lose her. _And_ she was needed at the London base, where they dealt with all that alien technology. Not many people had her experience with that.

So it had been Mace who’d had to leave. He’d lost his position as the commanding officer of the entire British division to Augustus Oduya, that pompous arse, and got exiled to _Cardiff_ , to sit over a mine full of nuclear warheads, with barely a chance to contact Marion.

That was what bugged him most. Despite everything that had happened, he still could not regret having fallen in love with her. In fact, he still loved her; and he missed her friendship, too. For the time being, though, their only way of contact was a virtual one. Private Carl Harris, a young soldier who, by some miracle, had survived both the Sontaran conditioning and his injuries and was now serving as one of his adjutants, had mcgyvered together a secure MSN connection for him.

The young man was very talented when it came to technology. He’d probably never recover enough to be battle-ready again, though. Which was the reason why he, too, had ended up here, outside Cardiff, together with other semi-crippled comrades, like Stevie Grey or Ross Jenkins. They had all very nearly died during the Sontaran invasion – without the presence of Commodore Sullivan, with his extensive knowledge about alien weapons and how to treat injuries caused by them, they _would_ have died, all three of them. There was something to say for a man who had travelled with the Doctor in his youth.

Even so, according to Doctor Jones, the young soldiers would have to remain on light duty for a long time yet. But at least they were still _alive_ , which couldn’t be said about a great many of their comrades. And they had faced hostile aliens already. Serving this close to the Cardiff Rift, that was a definite advantage. They couldn’t rely on Torchwood entirely, even if their current job didn’t involve actively fighting aliens.

Torchwood! Colonel Mace suppressed a groan, remembering how many times he’d clashed with the notorious Captain Harkness during his time as the commanding officer of UNIT: At least the Queen had the wisdom and foresight to put that Jones character in charge of Torchwood while Harkness had been missing. Granted, the man was almost shockingly young… at least on paper. No-one who’d survived the Battle of Canary Wharf could _really_ be considered young anymore.

In any case, Jones was highly organized and reliable – things Colonel Mace greatly valued. _And_ he made the best cup of coffee on the planet. Dealings with Torchwood had been so much easier since he’d been in charge. Even now that Harkness was back, Jones remained Director of Torchwood, which meant that Colonel Mace didn’t get yelled at through the phone twice a week. He preferred to deal with people who actually _had_ manners.

There was a discrete knock on the door and Private Jenkins came in, holding a bunch of printed-out messages. He was a tall, handsome young man, almost too pretty, but the looks were misleading. He still held the longest-lasting records on the shooting range and hoped that one day his hand would be stable enough again to break them himself. Until then, he reconciled himself with a desk job, glad that he had, at least, been able to remain within UNIT. Not many people with severe nerve damage got that chance.

“Today’s post, Colonel,” he handed the papers to Mace, who preferred printouts to reading the message onscreen. “There’s one for your eyes only, though, that I couldn’t open.”

“Where from?” Mace asked, scanning the usual reports, requests and bulletins with half an eye.

“Headquarters, sir,” Jenkins replied. “It requires a voice print recognition _and_ a retina scan. You can do it at your computer, though; the web cam has a direct feed to the security system.

Apparently, Carl Harris wasn’t the only technically savvy invalid under his command. But what would have made Oduya paranoid enough to take such extreme security measures?

“The message isn’t from Colonel Oduya, sir,” Jenkins explained. “It’s from the Brig himself… erm, I mean from Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, of course. Sorry, sir.”

 _That_ was a piece of news that made Mace extremely worried. The Brig, as the Great Old Man of UNIT was affectionally called by _all_ his subordinates, had retired for quite some time but was still called aboard if the occasion was important – or threatening – enough. He was a living legend, somebody who had worked with the famous Doctor for years; with several incarnations of him, in fact. 

He was also the man who had shaped UNIT like nobody else had. Whatever was going on, if the brass needed to call in the Brig again, it couldn’t be good. Mace sighed. It was better to face the music right away.

“Well, Private, why don’t you leave me alone with my secret orders, then, so that I can actually view them?” he asked with exaggerated patience.

Jenkins snapped to attention – and nearly lost his balance, due to his nasty inner ear problem, another result of his injuries. The list of those was quite long.

“Aye aye, Colonel!” he said crisply and marched out with markedly less enthusiasm than before but with a lot more stability in his step.

Mace sighed again, activated the web cam attached to his computer and leaned closer to it, so that the security system could perform its required retina scan.

“Colonel Alan Mace, ready to receive orders,” he said, adding his service number. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
His loud cursing alerted Jenkins in the anteroom of the office moments before he would tear the door open and bellow.

“Get me Harris, right away! I want him to hack into the personal files of MI5 and find out who the hell this Agent Johnson is!”

“Sir?” Jenkins was duly shocked by that demand. Everybody knew that trying to hack into the database of MI5 was a suicidal attempt. Even if someone from UNIT tried to do it.

“You heard me, soldier!” Mace fumed. “If they’re sending us a mole to sniff around us, I want to know _who_ exactly that mole is and what she’s capable of. Now, _move_!”

“Aye aye, sir!” suitably intimidated, Jenkins scurried away to carry out his orders.

Colonel Mace stared after him in grim satisfaction. “That’ll show them!” he muttered, before returning to his office.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Private Harris – just like Private Jenkins – is a canon character, featured in “The Sontaran Strategem/The Poison Sky”. They were both presumably killed in those episodes, but I decided that they were just badly injured. I didn’t want to populate the base with OCs.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
**CHAPTER 02**

Tom Milligan couldn’t for his life explain later what had made him agree to meet the head of a semi-secret government organization, to discuss with him a job he didn’t actually want. Aside from the sheer charisma of Commodore Sullivan’s personality, of course. It was hard to say no to a living legend; especially if said legend had been one’s personal hero.

In any case, here he was in Ealing, standing in front of a large red brick house at 13 Bannerman Road; a building that had some definite likeness to a haunted house. A visibly aged, emerald green Nissan Figaro stood in the front yard, but other than that, the place seemed pretty much abandoned.

When Tom used the doorknocker, though, it was answered immediately. A gentle-faced, middle-aged woman stood in the doorframe, with shoulder-length, reddish brown hair and wearing simple jeans and a striped t-shirt. Tom felt ridiculously overdressed in his only suit and wearing a tie.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” he said, feeling more than a little uncomfortable, “I’m Doctor Milligan; Doctor Thomas Milligan. Commodore Sullivan said I would meet a certain Mr. Jones here.”

“Oh, sure, c’mon in,” the woman said with a friendly smile that showed that she must have been very pretty in her youth. “I’m Sarah Jane Smith; an old friend of Harry’s.”

“My pleasure, Ms Smith,” Tom shook hands with her. “I read your report about the epidemics and their connections with corrupt government politics in East Africa; it was so brilliantly researched and so boldly written! Not many journalists have the courage to speak about those things so openly.”

“Well, my aunt always said I had more courage than common sense,” she replied, laughing. “I guess getting older hasn’t changed me much. You don’t need to be so formal with me, though. Just call me Sarah Jane, like everybody else. Well, everybody but Harry, that is,” she added with a slight frown. ”I could never quite break him out of the bad habit of calling me _old_ girl, although I’ve promised to break his nose many times.”

Tom grinned, trying to imagine this slender little lady threatening the imposing commodore with bodily violence. Somehow it wasn’t as hard to imagine as one would have thought. She was slight but obviously feisty. He liked her immediately.

She led him into an already crowded living room, where three other people were waiting for them: two men who couldn’t have been more different, and a lovely, elegant Asian woman – perhaps a Japanese one – in the classical little black dress and high heels to make her look taller.

Which was most likely an instinctive yet understandable effort, considering the two men in her company. They were both tall, as tall – if not taller – than Tom himself. One of them wore an impeccable three-piece pinstriped suit with a matching dress shirt in naval blue and a silk tie. He looked like an extremely young but extremely efficient company operative.

The other man was the strangest person of all present, with the boyish good looks of a thirty-something-year-old but the ancient eyes of an old soldier who’d seen it all and suffered more than his fair share. He wore fairly anachronistic clothes: a blue shirt with its sleeves rolled up, dark trousers with braces and a leather belt, and Tom could swear that the outdated RAF greatcoat hanging on the coat stand must have belonged to him. He seemed the most experienced of all there, yet it was the young man in the sharp suit who turned to Tom first and offered him a bland smile.

“Doctor Milligan, I presume?” he asked with a lilting Welsh accent, which, considering that Torchwood Three was based in Cardiff, wasn’t really surprising. At Tom’s nod, he extended a hand. “My name is Ianto Jones, currently in charge of Torchwood Three. Before we go any further, though, you will be required to sign the Official Secrets Act for our records.”

He produced said contract and a black pen. Tom, never a man to sign _anything before_ he’d read it carefully, even the small print ( _especially_ the small print), started flipping through the pages, taking his time to see what stood on them.

“Right,” Sarah Jane cleared her throat. “’This is my clue to put the kettle on. You just chat and yell me when you’re ready for a nice cuppa.” With that, she left in the direction of the kitchen.

The three from Torchwood waited patiently until Tom was through with the document and signed it on the last page. Mr. Jones took it from him, put his own signature under Tom’s, and then sealed it into an airproof bag with a stylised “T” made from hexagons on it. After that, he looked at Tom with that polite smile again.

“I believe further introductions are in order,” he said. “Doctor Toshiko Sato, our head researcher and resident computer genius,” the Japanese woman shot Tom a nervous little smile. “And this is Captain Jack Harkness, in charge of all field missions. He’s also our technical and weapons expert… well, one of them.”

Tom pulled a face. “I’ve already told the commodore that I’m not joining any military organization. This interview is pointless.”

“I beg to differ,” Mr. Jones said smoothly. “And Torchwood is _not_ a military organization. You’re mistaking us for UNIT, apparently.”

“What do you need a weapons expert for, then?” Tom asked doubtfully.

“It’s a bit… complicated, so I’ll have to start at the beginning,” Mr. Jones took a deep breath. “You’re an intelligent, well-educated man, doctor, so I’ll try to be as scientific as I can. In case I fail, Toshiko here will help me out. Let’s deal with first things first: how much do you know about Torchwood?”

“Nigh to nothing,” Tom admitted. “You’re some secret government organization; nobody really knows what you’re doing. Your headquarters was here in London, at Canary Wharf, but it was destroyed by a terrorist attack, back in 2007.”

“That’s not entirely correct,” Captain Harkness said with an American drawl, which surprised Tom. Torchwood, unlike UNIT, was supposed to be a purely British organization. “We act outside the government, and we’re beyond the police. And Canary Wharf was destroyed in an invasion.”

“Jack,” Mr. Jones interrupted, “I believe we agreed that I’ll be the one to conduct the initial interview today. No need to steamroll a promising candidate right at the beginning, remember?”

Captain Harkness flashed him a smile so bright and white Tom had to close his eyes to prevent being blinded by it. “Sorry, Ianto. I’ll be good, I promise.”

The look Mr. Jones gave him in response was more than a little doubtful, but the younger man chose not to argue about that promise at the moment.

“Why, do you think, is Torchwood Three established in Cardiff?” he then turned back to Tom. 

The doctor shrugged. “Well, London had one, I assume Glasgow has one, so Cardiff needed one, too – all individual parts of Great Britain need one, right?”

Captain Harkness and Miss Sato exchanged amused looks but said nothing. Mr. Jones allowed himself a small but genuine smile.

“Not exactly, although it’s a charming theory,” he said. “The truth is, though: we’re in Cardiff to monitor the Rift.”

“The _what_?” Tom suddenly had the feeling he’d ended up among a bunch of loonies who spent too much time at their x-boxes, playing Space Invaders or something like that.

“The Rift,” Mr. Jones repeated, absolutely seriously. Then he looked at Captain Harkness. “Care to explain, Jack? This is usually your favourite speech.”

Captain Harkness grinned and launched into what seemed to be a well-rehearsed speech.

“There's a Rift in space and time running right through Cardiff,” he explained. “Our end of it is fixed, but the other one keeps jumping through space and time. We never know what it will wash ashore. Creatures, time-shifts, space junk, debris, flotsam and jetsam… whatever it is, we have to deal with it.”

“You mean like the Barzan wormhole in Star Trek?” Tom asked doubtfully. “The one with only one fixed end, where you could go through but never return to the same place?”

God, these people weren’t just lunatics, there were Trekkies, too! He wondered whether he’d have been treated as a VIP had he managed to offer the Vulcan salute?

“That’s an apt comparison, albeit a little colourful,” Mr. Jones replied calmly. “Now, Doctor Milligan, a medic working for Torchwood is required to deal with whatever comes trough the Rift, which is usually aliens. Often dead ones, but just as often alive, eventually hostile ones. You’ll have to categorize them, save blood and tissue samples and file complete anatomical descriptions for our database.”

“I’m not a pathologist, _or_ an exobiology expert,” Tom pointed out, ignoring the small voice in his head that practically screamed at him to get out of this mess as long as he still could.

“We’re aware of that fact, Doctor Milligan,” Mr. Jones said. “That won’t be a problem, though. Your predecessor will instruct you about the proper procedure when it comes to dealing with alien life forms and substances. And we’ve got a freelance pathologist from one of the local hospitals who does most of the autopsies.”

“What do you need _me_ for, then?” Tom wondered.

“We need your experience at A&E, and with unknown diseases,” Mr. Jones explained. “I want to be completely honest with you, Doctor Milligan: Torchwood is a dangerous place to work for, and Torchwood employees tend to die young. We get in contact with all sorts of deadly things on a regular basis: with hostile aliens, poisonous alien substances, alien technology that we don’t understand and that frequently blows up into our faces. We’re trying to lessen the exposure, but you’ll doubtlessly have to deal with severe injuries, alien pathogens and the likes all the time. And half of those times, our lives will depend on your skills and quick thinking.”

“As a compensation, you get to play with cool alien tech and healing substances few people of the twenty-first century have ever heard of,” Captain Harkness added with another one of those blinding smiles, and Miss Sato nodded enthusiastically. These people clearly loved their jobs, despite the danger included.

There was something that bugged Tom, though. “What happened to my predecessor?” he asked. “Why did he – or she – quit?”

“He didn’t,” Mr. Jones replied dryly. “You don’t _quit_ Torchwood; not without getting your memory wiped, that is… unless in a body bag. Doctor Harper simply… well, let’s say that the pressure broke him, additionally to personal tragedies, and he tried to cope with it by excessive drinking. Needless to say it didn’t work out. But he’s made a lengthy therapy and is clean now… he just can’t operate anymore. His hands are no longer steady enough for that, and it’s doubtful that they’ll ever be. So he’s mostly restricted to theoretical and lab work, although we all hope that he’ll be able to work as a field medic again… eventually.”

Tom thought about that sobering piece of information for a moment. “I used to know an Owen Harper at medical school who had a spectacular breakdown after losing his fiancée,” he said. “Can we be talking about the same man? I know it’s a common enough name, but I seem to remember that he’s moved to Cardiff a couple of years ago.”

The Torchwood people exchanged surprised looks. Then Mr. Jones shrugged. “As you said yourself, it’s a common enough name, although the circumstances sound familiar. You’ll have to decide for yourself.”

“What makes you think I’ll actually take the job?” Tom asked.

“Who wouldn’t?” Captain Harkness flashed at him another thousand-megawatt smile. “The excitement of hunting murderous aliens, the shiny futuristic tech you get to play with… not to mention the chance to work alongside the best-looking people on the British Isles – who could say no to _that_?”

“I could try,” Tom replied mildly.

Mr. Jones silenced Captain Harkness with a slightly reproaching look. “Jack, behave!” 

Then he turned back to Tom. “Doctor Milligan, I’d like to suggest a compromise: a trial period of three months. That would give you the opportunity to get an overall impression about the work you’d be required to do.”

“Yeah, but what if I decide not to take the job?” Tom asked. “What would happen to me then? My current job at the A&E would be lost, and considering that I _live_ in the hospital right now, that’s not something I could risk.”

Ianto Jones smiled at him blandly. “No need to worry, Doctor Milligan. We’ll see you set back into your current position, should you choose to reject our offer.”

Tom stared at him in mild shock. “You can do that?”

Mr. Jones nodded confidently. “We can do that, yes… and more.”

“Well, in that case…” Tom cleared his throat, still somewhat reluctant to confess his burning curiosity about the mysterious job they were offering him. “I guess I should give it a try.”

Sarah Jane Smith chose this very moment to reappear with a huge tray packed with tea cups, a teapot, a can of milk, and heaps of biscuits and sandwiches.

“Have you come to an agreement?” she asked. “Excellent. Tea anyone?”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Mrs. Brenda Williams wasn’t particularly fond of Swansea, for several very good reasons. One of them being the fact that Gwen Cooper, the ex of her only son, now lived there with her parents. She had never liked Gwen, to tell the truth; she had always thought that darling Rhys would deserve someone better. Someone with a little more style. Someone who’d value him as he so richly deserved. Someone who were faithful to him and took good care of him.

Someone like Emma, actually. Now, there was a proper little wife-to-be, if she’d ever seen one.

Both Brenda and Barry had been devastated and outraged when Gwen had kicked Rhys out of the flat they’d shared for years, so that she could use the place as a love nest with Mr. Harwood Jr. They had been even more outraged when Rhys had lost his job as a result of that affair – a job he’d worked towards for so long and so hard. There had been harsh words between Barry and Geraint Williams in the aftermath, and the two families had avoided each other ever since then like the plague.

In the end, fortunately, things had turned out a lot better than expected. They’d turned out very well indeed. Brenda didn’t know much about her son’s current job – it was all very hush-hush, and she decided she was better off _not_ knowing – only that it paid considerably better than _Harwood’s_ , and that Rhys seemed well content with it.

It was also the place where he had met Emma – the best thing that could have happened to him, in Brenda’s opinion.

Granted, the girl had no living family left in Bristol, which was apparently the reason why she’d left the town in the first place. But she was a well-bred and well-educated little lady nonetheless. A little young perhaps – almost a decade younger than Rhys – but prim and proper and a delight to look at. She would even go to church regularly, which was a rare thing with today’s youth. Brenda wasn’t overly religious herself – certainly not as spectacularly as that sanctimonious cow, Mary Cooper – but she still found that there was something to say for a girl who’d go to church every Sunday.

The only thing Brenda found a bit overdone was Emma’s taste in clothes. She preferred the retro style of the 1950s and looked a bit old-fashioned, albeit lovely, in it. She insisted on wearing a wedding dress in that style, too, designing it herself, and the only tailor willing to custom-make it for her happened to live in Swansea. It was also a… pricey affair, almost shockingly so, but Emma was well paid, too, and could afford it.

She’d already been at the tailor’s shop twice to try it on, but she wanted Brenda’s opinion, too. Which was another thing Gwen would never, _ever_ have done. Naturally, Brenda was only too happy to meet her for the third time and see her in it.

Perhaps she’d find a proper outfit for herself, too. After all, the mother of the groom couldn’t look like some lower-class wench next to such a lovely bride! She was sure Barry would understand. After all, with Emma paying for her own dress, they could afford it.

Decision made, she walked briskly into the tailor’s shop, to see what kind of ready-made dresses would they offer for more… _mature_ ladies about to attend the wedding of their own sons. This time, she wanted something really nice.

A friendly shop assistant came forth at once to help her. Not one of those impertinent young things that’d look down their noses at any woman beyond thirty but an elegantly greying, distinguished man in a fitted suit. Brenda explained him her idea about the kind of attire she was looking for, and the man soon returned with several _very_ flattering outfits, asking her to try them on.

Brenda was all too happy to obey. She spent a delightful half hour in the small cabin, trying on one outfit after another. It was a really hard decision to make – they were _all_ so lovely! Perhaps the green one – she liked the patterned scarf and the hat that came with it very much. She turned this way and that in front of the mirror, admiring herself from every angle.

“What do you think, love?” she asked the person appearing behind her; she thought it was Emma.

But it was another, unpleasantly familiar voice that answered.

“Really lovely, Brenda. You were _so_ made for green… it matches your skin colour perfectly.”

Brenda whirled around and looked straight into the pointy face of Mary Cooper.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Colonel Mace stared at Private Carl Harris in disappointment.

“What do you mean you couldn’t find anything?” he demanded.

“I’ve tried my best, sir, but to no end,” Harris, a tall, dark-haired, rough-faced young soldier replied with a helpless shrug. “Either they don’t have any detailed intel about their own agent, or they’ve hidden it so well that I haven’t been able to find the slightest trace.”

“I thought you were supposed to be good with computers, Harris,” the colonel glared at his subordinate in a manner that left no doubt about his unhappiness. With that sour expression on his face, he had a startling likeness to a skull… that of a less-than-perfectly preserved mummy, in fact. 

Private Harris winced. An unhappy colonel was the guarantee for an entire base of very unhappy soldiers; and if the others found out that the reason for the colonel’s unhappiness was _his_ failure to find a piece of required intel for said colonel… he shuddered from the mental image of a hundred troops being pissed off at him. Perhaps he should consider a transfer… or an early retirement.

“Perhaps… perhaps we should contact Jacobs,” he suggested nervously. “Torchwood has their own methods to gather intel… and she’s a much better hacker than I can ever hope to become.”

He never imagined that Colonel Mace could _ever_ become so beet red in the face with anger. The man was practically puce, the redness visible even under his thinning grey hair.

“Are you suggesting, Private,” he began slowly, with barely suppressed rage, “that we call a… a _person_ who did her best to leave UNIT and transfer to bloody _Torchwood_ , and _beg_ her for help?”

Harris pulled in his neck. “Not a good idea?” he guessed.

“You’re a true master of understatement, Harris,” the colonel ground out. “Should I hear that Torchwood learned _anything_ about this, you’ll be on toilet duty for the next twenty years. Am I understood?”

“Aye aye, sir,” Harris fled the colonel’s office while he still could.

Colonel Mace glared at the closed door for a minute or so; then he started counting his contacts in London. Whom could he ask for more intel about this Johnson woman? It was clear that the Brig wouldn’t tell him anything; if that had been his intention, Sir Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart would have included said intel in the original message.

He could have asked Marion, of course, to do some investigation on her own, but that would have put her at great risk. MI5 didn’t like other organizations sniffing around in their business and could make their displeasure _painfully_ obvious. Literally. Marion was still just a captain; not yet high-ranking enough to be safe from MI5’s displeasure.

That left Colonel Mace only one choice. With a man who knew both UNIT and MI5 like the back of his hand, having served both organizations long and with success. With the added bonus that at the moment he was no longer with either of abovementioned organizations. A man old and shrewd enough to know which bushes to beat, but with contacts that could protect him from just about everything and everyone.

Decision made, Colonel Mace grabbed his phone receiver. “Jenkins, get me Commodore Sullivan on a secure channel!” he barked. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Mike Halloran returned home from his meeting with Rhys Williams cautiously optimistic. Beth, however, listened to his news rather doubtfully.

“I know we’ve got no answer to any of my applications, Mike,” she said doubtfully, “but really, _Torchwood_? Aren't they Special Ops or something like that? Doesn’t one need weapons training and stuff to work for them?”

“You think they’d have hired Rhys Williams if that were the case?” Mike replied, grinning.

“There is that,” Beth agreed with a reluctant smile. She liked Rhys Williams; everybody did. The man was like a big, soft teddy bear, with a heart of butter, always ready and willing to help everyone. Imagining him in camouflage pants, wielding a gun was simply impossible.

“Besides,” Mike added, “they’re looking for someone to work in administration. How would it be different from working for _Harwood’s_? Aside from the lack of harassment, hopefully.”

“Well, they _are_ a secret organization…” Beth began.

Mike snorted. “Yeah, some secret organization! They drive around in a big, honking SUV with a Torchwood logo big enough to be seen from orbit, and one of them even regularly orders pizza under the name of Torchwood!”

“That doesn’t mean they wouldn’t deal with confidential stuff,” Beth pointed out. “Just that they’re rubbish when it comes to staying under the radar.”

Mike shrugged. “So you may have to sign the Official Secrets Act – no big deal. A lot of people working for the government do. I promise I won’t ask anything about the big, dark secrets you may learn at work.”

“It isn’t the same as working for the government,” Beth said stubbornly. “All they ever do is very hush-hush; they‘ve never been on the telly, or in any of the newspapers…”

“They’ve been here since the late nineteenth century,” Mike reminded here. “They’ve managed to go on just fine, apparently. I don’t think they’d be blowing up the town any time soon.”

“But you said they’ll check our background,” Beth said uncertainly. “Why would they do that?”

“Standard protocol for organizations like theirs, I guess,” Mike replied with a shrug. “Even the City Hall does a full background check before employing anyone; even temps. Does it matter? We don’t have anything to hide, do we?”

“No,” Beth said slowly. “No, we don’t. So, you think I should apply for the job?”

“Not if you’re not comfortable with the thought,” Mike kissed her on the cheek. “I don’t want you to apply for any job that frightens you, love. You can quit _Harwood’s_ and stay at home for a while, if it becomes too much. See what other opportunities might be there.”

“But I can’t, Mike, don’t you see it?” Beth sighed. “We can’t even keep the flat with just your salary, and you can’t work yourself ragged just so that we could pay the bills while I do nothing. We deserve to _live_ a little, too… a holiday perhaps, if it’s only a weekend away. And we want to have children, eventually. We need to get settled, to build a _life_. We’re not getting any younger.”

Mike knew she was right. They simply _needed_ the money… and Rhys had hinted that Torchwood paid its employees well. Apparently, Rhys himself made more money now than he had when still having Mike’s current job. Something like that would be nice.

“So, shall I call Rhys, then?” he asked.

After a moment of hesitation Beth nodded reluctantly.

“I reckon I should give it a try at least,” she said.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Brenda Williams was hard-pressed _not_ to scream in despair. This was _exactly_ the encounter she’d been trying to avoid; the main reason she hated Swansea. Mary Cooper always made her want to climb up the walls. That bloody woman never failed to make her feel small, fat and as common as dirt.

Mary herself had a marked resemblance to a goose, with that long neck, narrow face and pointy nose. She clearly thought herself elegant and refined… someone really ought to tell her that at her age, wearing so much make-up didn’t make her look youthful – it just made her look ridiculous! Just like that pink blouse she was wearing under her black-and-white patterned suit jacket. No, it wasn’t even a proper blouse, it was a bloody a T-shirt! What was she, fourteen? 

And honestly, would it have killed her to wear a bra that would actually _help_ against the forces of gravity? Big boobs were nice and good as long as one was young and perky, but only Mary would believe that having them hanging into her kneecaps would be atttractive. Well, at least it explained the fashion sense of her daughter – or rather the complete lack of it.

And _she_ had the cheek to criticize _Brenda_ ’s choice of clothes? Well, two could play _that_ game!

“Mary, how lovely to see you!” Brenda exclaimed with the same poisonous sweetness as they kissed the empty air about two inches from each other’s cheek. “Lovely outfit, too. Such a brave choice for you… is there a special occasion?”

“Oh, nothing, just a little game of bridge with the mayor’s wife, as usual,” Mary replied haughtily; she’d always liked to rub her connections to the so-called better social circles into Brenda’s face. Together with the fact that they were so much better off financially than the Williamses. A _lot_ better. “What is _your_ excuse, darling? This isn’t the usual choice for you to shop for clothes.”

Unlike other times, the jab didn’t really hurt; perhaps because this time Brenda had the bigger gun… figuratively speaking.

“That’s true,” she agreed readily. “But it isn’t on any day that one’s only son would get married, and the mother of the groom has to make a good figure on such an event.”

“I doubt that it could be achieved by shopping beyond your financial limits, dear,” Mary smiled thinly.

“ _You_ of all people should know,” Brenda countered without missing a beat. Geraint Cooper’s complaints about his wife’s shopping spree were legendary in the circles in which both families socialized.

Mary blinked, momentarily off-balance; then she regained her composure with impressive speed. Being a first class bitch did have its advantages, apparenty.

“And who is the lucky girl?” she asked sweetly.

“I am,” a third voice said, and sweet-faced Emma, wearing a knee-length, turquoise skirt dress with a short-cropped jacket and a pale blue silk blouse walked around Mary to kiss Brenda’s cheek. Heels and gloves completed the look of a prim little middle-class lady, and she wore a tiny, feathered blue hat on her head, securely balanced over her beehive hairdo. “I’m terribly sorry for being late, Mrs Williams. Traffic has been somewhat difficult today, and no-one at work had the time to drive me.”

“And the happy groom just couldn’t be bothered to drive his bride?” Mary commented poisonously.

Emma gave her a genuinely shocked look. “Oh, but he couldn’t! It would be bad luck for him to see the wedding dress before the wedding!”

“You mean he might run away in shock, should he see it?” Mary asked sweetly.

All of a sudden, the wide-eyed innocence disappeared from Emma’s ace, giving room to the wicked smile of a woman very sure of her powers.

“Oh, I doubt that he’ll be able to run – or even to speak properly – once he’s seen me in that dress,” she said, offering Brenda her arm. “Shall we, Mrs. Williams?”

“I told you to call me Brenda,” Brenda chided her, but Emma shook her head determinedly.

“That just won’t be proper. Not yet anyway.”

“You’re such a sweet, well-bred girl, Emma,” Brenda smiled with appreciation at her future daughter-in-law and took her arm. “I’m so glad Rhys has finally found someone who can value him as he deserves. Well, show me that dress of yours.”

With that parting shot in Mary’s direction, they left arm in arm for the private area of the shop. After a moment of hesitation, Mary Cooper followed them uninvitedly.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Jack and Ianto took the night train to return from London to Cardiff on the very evening after the first interview with Tom Milligan. Their business with UNIT and other authorities was done, and now that they might have found a new medic for Torchwood Three, Ianto felt better when he could be within reach of the Hub. 

Only Tosh stayed in London for another day or two, to meet with friends and family whom she hadn’t seen for too long. With Trevor and Lloyd more than capable of running things on their own, at least for a while, she could finally afford a little time off, and Ianto was only glad to let her take it. Even with capable assistants under her hand, Tosh still worked too hard.

“I’ll pick up Doctor Milligan when he’s ready and take him to the usual hotel for visitors,” she promised. “It will be the easiest way for us all; someone can then pick him up from the Plass in the next morning.”

That was fine with Ianto, and so he and Jack rode the train alone, arriving in Cardiff just a little after midnight.

“I’ve left my car in the parking lot,” Ianto said – unnecessarily, since Jack already knew that, just to start the conversation. “Do you want a lift to the Hub?”

Jack shook his head. “I’d prefer to go to my place, if that’s all right with you.”

“Your place?” Ianto’s eyebrows climbed to the roots of his hair. "You finally got a place all for yourself? Well, it was time.”

“I thought you knew everything that’s going on in the Hub,” Jack teased. “You ought to have noticed that I no longer live under my… under _your_ office.”

Ianto shook his head. “Jack, I’m familiar with the concept of privacy, and I respect it. I don’t spy on you – on any of you. And considering that you still spend at least twenty hours a day in the Hub, it would cost me a lot of effort to find out where you spend the rest. So, where _do_ you live when you’re not in the Hub?”

Jack gave him the address, and Ianto frowned. It sounded very familiar. “You moved into Owen’s old place?”

“Well, he gave it up, and I thought it would be a shame to let some stranger take it,” Jack replied with a shrug. “It’s a nice place; you know I’m fond of heights.”

“Especially falling off them,” Ianto muttered darkly, but he had to admit that Jack was right. Owen’s penthouse _was_ a nice place… and it wasn’t so as if the doctor had any more use of it.

Owen might have finished his therapy at _Providence Park_ successfully and might be clean now, but his hands were still not steady enough to drive – and he’d been _encouraged_ by his therapist to move out of the penthouse, considering his suicide tendencies. So he’d moved into a first-floor flat near Roald Dahl Plass, from where he could simply walk to work. Not that one couldn’t have killed himself by jumping out of a first-floor window – or by any other means _within_ the flat, for that matter – but everyone agreed that the penthouse would be too much of a temptation.

Surprisingly enough, given how much he used to like the place, Owen moved out without complaining. When asked for the reason, his only answer had been a terse “too many memories”, so the others stopped asking. It was painfully obvious that he still hadn’t gotten over Diane leaving him, and no-one wanted to be the cause of a relapse.

Ianto had never asked himself what might have happened to Owen’s place; quite frankly, he had more pressing issues to worry about. Now he had his answer.

“I like what you’ve done to the place,” he said, looking around in the living room, the whole outer wall of which was made of glass, so that the inhabitants had a spectacular view at both the night sky and the city of Cardiff below.

When Owen had lived here, the room had been Spartan, almost empty. Owen didn’t have the tendency to clutter his living space with knick-knacks. Now, having changed inhabitants, it was still airy and sparsely furnished; but it had a large, circular oriental rug in the middle, and there were small, personal items on the bookshelves, together with old-looking books, some of which must have been at least a hundred years old. All of a sudden, the place actually looked something akin to a home.

“Is this what your old home looked like?” Ianto glanced around, admiring the strange symbiotic mix of old-fashioned and futuristic items.

Jack shook his head and laughed quietly. “Oh, no! Boeshane Colony was a tiny little place, stuck away on the shore of a hot, arid planet. And it was a fairly new one, too; in the fourth generation, we still lived in portacabin townships. This here,” he made a sweeping gesture around, “is more like how I lived in the chief city of the planet, later on. After I’ve joined the Time Agency.”

“Is that why you chose to move in?” Ianto asked carefully. It was still a rare event that Jack would talk about his past; showing too much curiosity might make him stop.

“No,” Jack replied with a wistful smile. “I moved in because I’m closer to the stars here. I miss the stars, Ianto… I used to travel among them the way you took the train to London. The wonders I’ve seen…” he trailed off, his eyes darkening with memories and with want.

“You _can_ return to the stars, can’t you?” Ianto asked tentatively. He was sure Jack could find a way if he wanted to.

Jack, however, shook his head. “No, I can’t; not yet. The twenty-first century is when everything changes, and it’s my job to stay here and make the Earth ready… or at least Torchwood.”

“You’ve said it many times by now,” Ianto said. “But _what_ is going to change, Jack? _What_ ’s it we need to be ready for?”

“I don’t know,” Jack admitted. “But I’m afraid we’ll learn it, very soon. I can feel it in my bones.”

He looked incredibly tired in that moment: like a man with the burden of millennia weighing down on his shoulders. Having had several hundred deaths and revivals just a couple of months ago could do that to a man. Ianto sighed and helped him out of his greatcoat. Despite the changes in their respective status, this was a small gesture he kept doing for Jack. Just like making him coffee.

“You need to rest, Jack,” he said quietly. “You’re still recovering from The Year That Never Was, and will be for a long time yet. No need to put up a brave façade; this is me, remember?”

“I know,” Jack rubbed his eyes tiredly with his fists, like a small boy. “I just don’t find sleeping very restful. Care to stay the night?” he added in a tiny, hopeful voice.

Ianto hesitated. In the two months since Jack’s return, they’d been out for exactly two “proper dates”, as Jack had called it, but they still weren’t quite back to business as usual between them. They still hadn’t been intimate yet, for starters.

“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, Jack,” he said.

“Not for sex,” Jack clarified bluntly. “I’ve promised you not to press the issue, and I hold to my promise. I just… I just really don’t want to be alone tonight; and I always rest better with you around.”

Ianto considered the request. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Jack – Jack could be uniquely reliable when it came to keep his promises. He didn’t really trust _himself_ around Jack. He missed Jack, what they used to have, too badly. That, however, was not a strong enough reason to leave Jack alone with his demons. Jack _needed_ to rest – and Ianto knew that his presence did calm the older man considerably. They still had a connection; a different one than before, but they still had it.

“All right,” he said. “I can live without driving back to my flat tonight. Morning will come early enough as it is.”

And he took off his suit jacket and draped it fastidiously over the back of a chair, pretending that he hadn’t seen the relief flickering across Jack’s face.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Hundreds of light years from Earth, the huge spaceship’s automated navigation system made the last pre-programmed course corrections. It was a colony ship, carrying thousands of future colonists in their embryonic state, in cryogenic stasis capsules, ready to be born and to populate the selected planet once the advance guard - sent in several local cycles previously - had prepared everything for their arrival.

The Swarm had studied the planet for many, many cycles; it was ideal for their purposes. The indigenous species had already polluted the atmosphere enough, so that it would only require minor changes to become breathable for them in their natural form. They hybrid bodies the advance guard had achieved would _not_ survive in it, but that wasn’t required, either. They’d been bred and modified and programmed to sacrifice themselves to prepare the planet for the takeover. They wouldn’t be needed afterwards. They knew it, and once they were awakened, it wouldn’t bother them. It had always been the Swarm that counted, not the individuals.

They had planned this operation on the long hand, very carefully. In the far future, they had been relentlessly pursued by the agents of an empire that had its origins on this insignificant backwater planet. So the decision had been made to travel back in time – they had acquired the means to do so from the very same agents in the future – and to destroy the indigenous species millennia _before_ it could become a threat.

Taking over the planet and inhabiting it for a while was only an added bonus. The Swarm had no homeworld and never stayed on the same planet for longer than a hundred cycles. Once it had been stripped from all its natural resources, the Swarm boarded the great colony ships again and moved on for new, rich planets, leaving a barren rock in their wake. Just like the Earth insects called locusts.

This particular ship had been travelling for almost eighty cycles by now. The original crew was long dead, their bodies recycled to feed the future generation; a generation that had yet to be born. The young did not need the knowledge _or_ the guidance of their elders. All those memories, the memories of the entire Swarm, were genetically encoded in their brains. Once they woke up, they’d know what they had to do. Each new generation did.

Until then, though, they still had a journey of several cycles before them. So they kept sleeping, unborn, cared for and protected by the intricate machinery of the ship. By a technology that came three thousand cycles from the future.

The ship checked all systems, including its own programming. In less than two cycles, it would send the wake-up signal to the advance guard on the planet. The soldiers would shake off their human disguise and move on to fulfil the task they’d been created for in the first place.

And then, the human race would no longer be a threat for the future.


	3. Chapter 3

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
**CHAPTER 03**

Tom Milligan left his hotel at 7.30am and took a taxi to take him to Roald Dahl Plass. He was supposed to be at the water tower by 8am, sharp, and the last thing he wanted was to make a bad first impression by being late. Even if he still wasn’t sure he wanted the job,.

Although Doctor Sato had told him that formal clothing wasn’t required, he still thought it better to wear his only suit again, with plain white shirt and a black tie, and with his laptop case hung over his shoulder. The Torchwood people all seemed big on tech, so, while he wasn’t _that_ technically savvy himself, he thought it would speak for him if he could show that he wasn’t from the previous century, either.

He arrived at Mermaid Quay ten minutes before the appointed time, but he didn’t mind being early. It gave him the chance to take a look at the Plass, which he hadn’t seen since he’d moved to London with his parents, at the age of eight. It was mostly empty, save from a few eager tourists who’d apparently started their sightseeing tour at an ungodly hour; and the Millennium Centre looked almost intimidatingly massive.

Tom walked over to the water tower and glanced at his watch. Five more minutes to go. He was wondering who would come and fetch him, and anyway, why did they want to meet him in such a public place? Didn’t they have a proper office?

“Doctor Milligan?” a high, almost child-like voice asked from behind his back.

Whirling around in surprise – perhaps with a bit more swing than strictly necessary – his look fell upon a young woman of perhaps twenty, wearing a pencil style turquoise skirt suit and moderately high heels. Her dark blond hair was twisted into a French knot and she emanated an air of business-like professionalism.

Tom confirmed his identity, and the young woman shook hands with him.

“Welcome to Cardiff, Doctor Milligan. I’m Emma Cowell, personal assistant of Director Jones. If you would be so kind as to follow me.” She gave him a serene smile, turned and walked off, without waiting for him to react. After a moment of surprise, Tom followed her meekly.

To his surprise, she led him straight to a small tourist information office beside the water. It was a less than spectacular wooden building, the outer walls somewhat ruined by the salt water, but the windows were reasonably clean and covered by old, faded prospects, denying any glimpse into the inside.

The pretty young woman held up the door and gestured Tom to enter. He went in and squinted to let his eyes adjust to the semi-darkness within… only to realize a short time later that the inside of the shop looked a great deal better than the outside. It _was_ a little cluttered, true, but it appeared to be neatly ordered place nonetheless. 

Actually, it looked like the reception of an old-fashioned little hotel from the 1950s. It had a decidedly feminine touch, with knick-knacks and the usual souvenirs for sale among the brochures and leaflets, CDs with traditional Welsh music lining one shelf, and even potted plants in the one corner that actually did get some sunlight around mid-day. On the left side of the door was even a decorative wall fountain – really catchy with a satyr head serving as the fountainhead, even though no actual water came from it – filled with a potpourri of dried flowers in its basin. Behind the counter with an old-fashioned desktop monitor on its right corner, a small kitchenette had been separated by a bead curtain, with the label “Staff only” next to it.

Miss Cowell walked around the counter and reached underneath it, where she apparently pushed some button, because the door fell closed with a barely audible _click_ and the locks on it snapped shut. At the same time, there was a low, grinding noise and the wall on the right side of the door slowly swung open to reveal a secret passage behind.

 _The entrance to the Batcave_ , Tom thought, amused, following the young lady down a long, well-lit corridor. The stone walls of it seemed ancient, must have been there for at least a century or two, yet the round electric lights were clearly contemporary items – and so was the fairly modern lift at the end of the corridor, strangely at odds with the surrounding stonework.

As soon as they entered the lift, it began to descend with a speed the like of which Tom had last experienced while visiting the Danube Tower in Vienna. As a rule, he had no problem with fast lifts, but right now, he felt his stomach rising up slightly and had to swallow hard to avoid getting sick. _That_ wouldn’t have made a very good first impression. Especially as Miss Cowell didn’t seem to be bothered by the increasing acceleration.

Tom had counted seven levels, marked by flashes of light interrupted by a brief darkness as they rapidly sank past solid stone floors by the time the the lift finally came to a stop. Fortunately, he’d never been claustrophobic; or else the thought of having the weight of stone floors and whatever building might be above them would have made him freak out, big time. Even so, the knowledge was slightly uncomfortable. He’d have to get used to it – assuming that he’d take the job in the first time, of course.

The lift doors retracted noiselessly, and Miss Cowell stepped out before him, walking straight up to the door blocking their way. It was shaped like a huge cog, for some strange reason. Miss Cowell produced a key, put it into a slot in the wall to her left and turned it. The cog door rolled back slowly, underlined by the howl of alarm sirens and the flashing of orange lights. 

Miss Cowell stepped forward and gestured Tom to follow her. When they had passed the door, she turned to give him a very professional smile; one that would have put a hotel receptionist to shame.

“Welcome to Torchwood, Doctor Milligan.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Patrick Grainger, leader of the City Council in Cardiff, in charge of the city during emergencies, leaned back in his armchair and sighed. Today had been another one of those long, incredibly boring days when nothing useful could be done because the entire day was full of team meetings, personal meetings, interviews and the likes. He wanted nothing more than to go home and spend some quality time with Victoria and the children, but somehow he had the feeling that the day wasn’t quite over yet.

Not according to the expression on his PA’s face as he came in with some more papers for Grainger to sign. Grainger had come to the realization that the face of the industrious young man was the perfect barometer displaying the amount of work still before them. A very useful trait, he found.

Many of those working in the City Hall didn’t like Idris Hopper. Nicknames like “the robot”, “the lackey” or “the mistress” were among the least hostile ones used behind his back. Grainger made it his policy to crash down on the really mean ones, but he couldn’t forbid his co-workers _everything_. Sometimes people simply needed to went, and he couldn’t deny that there _was_ something in the too smooth manners, too sleek appearance and too feminine acting of the young man that riled up other people the wrong way.

It had nothing to do with the fact that Idris was gay, especially since he behaved himself absolutely correctly at work. Most women usually liked to work with gay men; it meant they wouldn’t have to worry about possible harassment; although it _had_ increased the chance of cat fights. Even if one of the cats involved was male.

But not even the women liked Idris, with he sole exception of the beautiful, cultured – and happily married – Claire Lyndon, chief secretary of the Lord Mayor. She was the only one who not only tolerated but actively sought out Idris’ company, going to the theatre and to concerts with him – all things her own husband, the director of the city’s communications centre, had absolutely no interest in. This was the perfect solution for all three of them: Idris had a colleague who liked him, Claire had a friend who shared her interests, and David Lyndon had no reason to be jealous. In fact, he couldn’t have had his beautiful and spirited wife in safer company.

Part of the reason for Idris’ unpopularity was doubtlessly the fact that he’d made his major career jump under the short-lived reign of the ill-remembered Margaret Blaine. The previous Lord Mayor, who had later turned out to be a terrorist with the hidden agenda of blowing up the whole Cardiff with the help of an intentionally faulty nuclear reactor a few years ago, had picked Idris out of the nameless rows of office boys and made him her personal secretary. Idris had been grateful, of course, and loyal to her to the last moment.

After the mysterious disappearance of Margaret Blaine – which doubtlessly had to do something with Torchwood, the few CCTV vids that had survived the major crash of all computer networks of the City Hall clearly showed the presence of Captain Jack Harkness, although in civilian clothes and with a different hairdo, in various places – Idris had lost his position, of course. Not that he’d have known anything about Blaine’s intentions, or would have been involved in any way, but people needed a scapegoat to find a ventil for their anger. So Idris had gotten mobbed and snubbed and even beaten up for a few times – until Grainger had had enough of it and interfered, making the young man his PA.

He never regretted that decision for a moment. Idris was organized, efficient, polite and loyal – and, to Victoria’s relief, he was also a man, unlikely to seduce his boss and to take him away from his family. Not that Grainger would ever have had anything with a female PA, either – not since he’d married the last one anyway. But Victoria did have the tendency to be unnecessarily jealous, so it was better to be safe than sorry.

“Do I have any other appointments for today, Mr. Hopper?” Grainer asked, signing the documents his PA had laid onto his desk.

“Only one, sir,” Idris replied. “Colonel Mace from the local UNIT base,” he paused briefly, then added. “He’s waiting outside.”

“By all means, let him in, then, Mr. Hopper,” Grainger said wearily. “The sooner I learn what he wants, the sooner can we all go home.”

“Certainly, Mr. Grainger,” Idris collected the signed documents and left, holding the door open for somebody. “Mr. Grainger is ready for you, Colonel.”

There was no word of thanks, just some kind of snort, and in marched a middle-aged, gaunt-faced man with thinning grey hair, wearing the duty uniform of a UNIT colonel.

“Mr, Grainger, sir,” he greeted the Council leader with a military salute. “Thanks for seeing me in such a short notice. I think what I’ve got to say will be of some interest for you.”

“Sounds ominous,” Grainger said, worried a little by the serious tone of the soldier.

He hadn’t had much dealing with UNIT yet, the base outside the city had been established _after_ the Blaine crisis to protect whatever was hidden in the mineshaft below, and City Council and military usually did their best _not_ to get in each other’s way. God knew Torchwood interfered often enough with both their lives. They didn’t need grief from each other, too.

“Because it is,” Colonel Mace said. 

Then he took a strange-looking little device out of his pocket and switched it on. The thing did – nothing. _Absolutely_ nothing! The colonel looked content nonetheless.

“Excellent!” he said. “No hidden listening devices in a radius of five hundred metres. Now we can talk.”

“What is this all about?” Grainger asked, seriously worried now.

“I’ve been informed by my superiors that MI5 suspects the presence of a terrorist cell in Cardiff,” Colonel Mace explained grimly. “They’re sending an experienced agent to investigate. In order to avoid undue attention, this agent will operate out of the UNIT base. Considering that the City Hall has already been infiltrated by terrorists once, though, I thought you’d need to know about this, sir.”

“Indeed,” Grainger said thoughtfully. “Thanks for the courtesy, Colonel.”

“Don’t mention it,” Colonel Mace gave he closed door a suspicious look. “I’m told your PA worked closely with that Blaine character…”

“He’s clean,” Grainger said. “We’ve checked him. The police have checked him. Hell, _Torchwood_ has checked him; and I don’t have to tell you that they have ways to find out things we can’t even _dream_ of.”

“So I’ve been informed repeatedly,” Mace agreed with a sour face.

Grainger shrugged. “They are what they are; and they’ve been here long enough for us, local authorities, to have arranged ourselves with them. They have their use, even if the local police clashes with them from time to time. Besides, things have been going more smoothly since Director Jones took over. He, at least, is familiar with the concept of cooperation.”

Colonel Mace pulled a sour face again… not that it would have made such a big difference to his usual, naturally sour expression.

“Yeah, I had to deal with Harkness a few times in the past. That man’s a menace.”

“Still, they’ve got their sources,” Grainger pointed out. “Perhaps they can help to find out more about your mysterious agent of yours.”

“No,” the colonel declared forcefully. “I don’t want Torchwood involved in this. I’d rather take my chances with this Agent Johnson if I have to.”

Grainger shrugged again. Personally, he found it foolish not to use any help that might be available – young Director Jones _was_ amazingly cooperative, unless it came to Torchwood secrets – but he didn’t want to get between the fronts of two rivalling secret organizations.

“Ultimately, it’s your choice, Colonel,” he said. “Let’s hope this Agent Johnson is really good at her job. Because I find the idea of a terrorist cell working towards some secret agenda in Cardiff highly unsettling.”

“So do I,” the colonel admitted and rose. “Well, I have to go. I just thought you’d appreciate an early warning.”

Grainger nodded and rose, too, to shake hands with the colonel. “That I do indeed, Colonel. Should you learn anything more conclusive about this supposed terrorist cell…”

“I’ll inform you at once,” Colonel Mace finished for him. “Good day, Mr. Grainger.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Tom became practically rooted on the other side of the cog door, his mouth hanging open as he stared down at the secret Torchwood base stretching to near-infinity above his head and beneath his feet.

The base was _huge_. Cavernous. Like an underground railway station ten times the usual size. _Definitely a Batcave_ , Tom thought, absurdly pleased by the idea – he used to be a fan as a child – as he followed Miss Cowell across a metal walkway. Her heels clicked rapidly, reverberating against the steel grid around the great empty space, which only added to the air of mystery. He could see no Batmobile parked anywhere, but there was a huge water tower in the middle of the whole place: apparently the subterraneous extension of the tower on the Plass. The water poured down freely all the way, forming a pool at the base of the tower.

There were various workstations around what seemed the main working area, with computers so advanced that for a moment Tom wondered whether he’d stepped into the Twilight Zone and ended up aboard the Starship _Enterprise_. At one of those stations – a large one that had no less than three digital screens above the desk – he recognized Doctor Sato, working with a bald, bespectacled young man. Both of them wore white lab kits. Hearing the _clang_ of their footsteps upon the metal walkway, Doctor Sato looked up for a moment, recognized Tom and gave him a brief smile before turning back to her computers and continuing her rapid-fire technobabble conversation with her assistant.

In the next moment, there was a decidedly otherworldly screech high above their heads, and a huge, winged creature flew by, making Tom duck involuntarily, despite the considerable distance. It was too big to be a bird, unless they kept a condor down there, and it had vast, leathery wings and a beak probably large enough to pick up a grown man for lunch. Or Tom was just too shocked by the sight.

“What the hell is _that_?” he asked, trying to sound normal… and failing miserably.

“Our resident pterodactyl,” Miss Cowell replied matter-of-factly, as if having giant, flying dinosaurs as pets would have been a normal thing. Perhaps it _was_ for Torchwood. “We call her Myfanwy. She came through the Rift a couple of years ago, barely a fledgling, and we haven’t found a way to send her back yet.”

“So you keep her in your _base_?” Tom asked incredulously. Miss Cowell shrugged.

“Well, we cannot send her to a zoo, can we? They’d take her apart, out of _scientific curiosity_ ; and besides, how are we supposed to explain where she came from? She does no harm here… actually, she’s quite affectionate as dinosaurs go. Fond of dark chocolate, too. Director Jones says it’s good for her serotonin levels… if pterodactyls do have serotonin levels, that is. Do they?” she looked at Tom expectantly.

“I have no idea,” he confessed, refusing to contemplate the utter weirdness of the topic of their conversation. “This is the first time I see a live dinosaur – unless films like _Jurassic Park_ count.”

“I don’t believe so,” Miss Cowell replied seriously. “Those were computer-generated and therefore the product of human fantasy. Myfanwy is _real_.”

She stopped – apparently, they had reached their destination – and pushed open the glass door to what looked like a conference room. A high-tech one, if the viewscreen and the virtual whiteboard on the wall were any indication.

Inside the room, several people were sitting around a long table, drinking coffee, by the heavenly aroma wafting towards the open door. Tom spotted Director Jones at once; the others seemed so far unknown, with the exception of Captain Harkness.

“Doctor Milligan, sir,” Miss Cowell announced.

“Thank you, Emma; you can return to the cover shop, if you don’t mind; we can deal with things on our own from here. I think I’ll still manage to serve coffee if I have to.” 

Miss Cowell nodded and left, clearly not bothered by the dismissal the least. Director Jones stood to shake hands with Tom and gave him a small but cordial smile.

“Welcome to Torchwood, Doctor Milligan. I thought it would be better if you met our medical staff first. They can explain you the various facets of work a Torchwood medic is expected to do. There will be time enough to meet the others later.”

That was fine with Tom. Having fewer unknown faces to recognize and fewer names to remember was always better. Besides, he still hadn’t decided to take the job, so the less he knew the better it was for him.

“Allow me to make the introductions,” Director Jones continued, gesturing at a tall, well-built woman of about first. “Doctor Angela Connolly, our freelance pathologist. She works at _St. Helen’s Hospital_ , primarily, but has helped out in the autopsy bay for the last six months or so.”

Tom shook hands with the lady doctor, who had short-cropped, springy black hair and smooth, unblemished skin of the colour of milk chocolate and smelled faintly of cigarette smoke. She grinned at him in a friendly manner. Tom liked her immediately; she had a dedicated air upon her, like those emergency doctors who wouldn’t hesitate to pull all-nighters, even after a double shift, but were also capable of relaxing and having a good time with their colleagues in a pub.

“Ms Sara Lloyd, doctor of biochemistry, with a master’s degree in genetics, formerly with SOCO,” Director Jones continued on. “She runs our genetics lab and will be working with you whenever it comes to blood and tissue samples and whatever biological agent the Rift chooses to throw at us on any given day.”

Lloyd was a tall blonde in her mid-thirties, wearing a white lab coat over casual clothes, her long hair twisted into a neat bun on the nape of her neck. She also seemed to be a consummate professional – always a good thing when one had a high-risk job.

“What kind of biological agents?” Tom asked, while shaking hands with Lloyd. She had a surprisingly hard grip.

“Alien pathogens, bacteria and viruses, chemical and biological warfare… the list is endless,” a male voice answered in Lloyd’s stead, and a scrawny, black-haired man in a leather jacket rose from his seat to greet Tom. “Milligan! It’s really you! I didn’t believe it when Teaboy first said he was going to hire _you_ of all people.”

“I see you haven’t lost your charming personality, Harper,” Tom laughed, but his experienced eye took in all the telltale signs of Doctor Owen Harper’s condition: the dark shadows under his eyes, the paleness of his gaunt face, the slight tremors shaking his hands from time to time.

“Yeah, as if I had a rat’s chance against Captain Innuendo here,” Harper scowled. “He does all the charming by himself. You better invest in some sunglasses, or else you’ll be blinded by his teeth within your first week here.”

Captain Harkness good-naturally ignored the jab and grinned at Tom so brightly that the doctor involuntarily squinted… which led to general hilarity around the table.

“And this,” Director Jones continued, ignoring the whole banter with practiced ease, ”is Doctor Martha Jones. She is the medical officer of the local UNIT base and our liaison to UNIT in general. She’s also something of an expert of alien life forms, so you will probably work with her on certain cases.”

But Tom no longer was listening to the young Torchwood director. He was staring at the pretty black woman in open-mouthed shock, as if he would be seeing a ghost.

“ _You_?” he said, not very coherently, but under the circumstances who could have blamed him for _that_. “It’s been _you_ all the time?”

Because Doctor Martha Jones was, without the slightest doubt, the woman from his recurring nightmares. Te same one he had been searching for in the last six months or so.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
In Swansea, Gwen Cooper, too, was staring at her mother with her mouth hanging literally open. “Rhys is doing _what_?”

“He’s getting married, apparently,” Mary Cooper repeated for the fourth time. “To some posh little girl, barely of legal age, I’d say. She must be rich, though, if she can afford a custom made bridal dress at _Peletier’s_.”

Such details had to get through to Gwen’s shocked mind yet, though. At the moment, the mere fact of Rhys getting married to someone _else_ was hard enough to digest.

“He was awfully quick to replace me,” she groused.

Her father gave her a long-suffering look. Geraint Cooper loved his little princess more than life itself, but sometimes he wished she would look at things more objectively.

“Well what did you expect, duckling?” he asked reasonably. “You broke up with him, threw him out of the flat that was as much his as it was yours – what else could he have done but write off his losses and move on?”

“But did he have to move on so soon?” Gwen complained. “Earlier on, he used to forgive me, no matter what… and who’s the little trollop anyway?”

“I have no idea,” her mother replied. “I’ve never seen her before. Brenda called her Emma, though. Did you and Rhys know anyone by that name? It’s quite an old-fashioned one, and so were her clothes; very nineteen-fifties.”

Gwen tried to remember why that sounded vaguely familiar but came up with a blank.

“Did she have a surname, too?” she asked.

Her mother gave her an exasperated eyeroll. “Don’t be ridiculous, Gwen, _of course_ she did! As I said, she must be quite rich. _Monsieur_ Richarte, the master tailor of _Peletier’s_ , was fawning over her all the time, as if she were some sort of celebrity. It was all Miss Cowell this and Miss Cowell that. She had apparently designed that bridal dress herself.”

“Well, _that_ must be a hoot!” Gwen laughed contemptuously. “A rich eighteen-year-old bint designing a vintage bridal dress!”

“Actually, it wasn’t that bad at all,” Mary Cooper admitted reluctantly. “A simple, elegant design in the same retro-style as her other clothes, made of satin and lace. I think she’s gonna be a beautiful bride.”

“Young, rich and beautiful and she’s gonna marry _Rhys_?” Gwen shook her head in disbelief. “He must have knocked her up or something. In the _dark_.”

“ _You_ were quite determined to marry Rhys once, duckling,” her father reminded her carefully.

Gwen shot him an angry glance. “Yeah, but I came to my sense. _This_ I have to see. Mum, do you have a clue where and when this ridiculous wedding is gonna take place?”

Mary Cooper shrugged. “I wasn’t _that_ interested. _Peletier’s_ ought to be able to tell you where the dress is supposed to be taken, though. They deliver directly to the wedding site, so that their dresses would arrive in top shape. But Gwen, I really don’t think this is such a good idea.”

“Mum, that’s my choice; leave it alone,” Gwen silenced her imperiously.

“Do you think they’ll actually tell you at _Peletier’s_ where to go?” Geraint Cooper _hoped_ they wouldn’t. The last thing they needed was Gwen crashing her ex-boyfriend’s wedding. She’d caused them enough problems since her torrid – and ultimately doomed – affair with Mr. Harwood Jr. She had not been herself ever since being fired from _Harwood’s_.

Aside from that damnable stubborn streak of hers, that is.

“I used to be a cop, Dad,” Gwen said, confirming her father’s worst fears. “I still have that badge lying around somewhere. All I have to do is to flash it and ask the right questions. They’re gonna tell me everything I want. _Everything_.”

Geraint Cooper was not so sure about _that_. But long experience had taught him not to cross the women of the family when they were on the warpath.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
The fact that Tom Milligan seemed to recognize Martha Jones – well, sort of – surprised everyone… to put it mildly.

“This shouldn’t be possible!” Doctor Sato, whom they had summoned to the meeting, declared. “Only those who were protected from the temporal effects by some means – you in the Hub or the ones aboard the _Valiant_ – should be able to remember _anything_. Why don’t _I_ remember? Granted, I wasn’t nowhere near to either of those places when time reset itself, but I used to travel with the Doctor for years. I’m still saturated with Artron energy, just like Jack or Martha or Mickey.”

“Yeah, but you were already dead when it happened,” Director Jones pointed out.

“So was Tom,” Doctor Jones looked at her colleague apologetically. “I’m sorry, Tom, but you _were_ killed indeed. We fled together from the Toclafane for a while, and you helped me escape. It was you who made it possible for me to fulfil my mission; you helped me to save the Earth from a terrible alien invasion, and no-one thanked you, ever.”

“He wasn’t _supposed_ to remember,” Captain Harkness reminded her.

“So why does he?” Harper asked.

“I honestly don’t have the foggiest idea,” Captain Harkness admitted. “But since he does, at least in short flashes, I think the best thing would be to tell him the truth. All of it, or the dreams – the _nightmares_ – would drive him mad.”

“Can’t we just Retcon him?” Harper suggested. “It would be better for all parties involved – especially for _him_. Remembering one’s own death can’t be a pleasant thing.”

“Trust the voice of experience: it _isn’t_ ,” Captain Harkness replied dryly. “But if his memories were strong enough to survive the reset of Time itself, Retcon would be of little to no use here. Unless we wiped his mind clear and put him into a mental institution – and even there, he might still suffer from nightmares.’

“Just a moment!” Tom interrupted, trying very hard not to freak out – and failing spectacularly. “This is _my_ mind you’re talking about; _my_ life you’re discussing. Shouldn’t _I have_ the right to make that choice?”

“Of course you do, Doctor Milligan,” Director Jones said soothingly. “You’re not a danger to anyone, and we won’t do anything against your will. We’re just discussing what _could_ be done at all, in order to present you different choices.” He paused for a moment, thinking. “I believe Jack is right, though. We need to tell you the whole truth, or else you might be haunted by nightmares you cannot understand for the rest of your life. That’s not something I’d want for anyone; and it would sooner or later drive you mad anyway. So I vote for laying all cards on the table.”

“That has to wait,” Doctor Sato interrupted, as alarm klaxons went off all over the place. “It seems we’re having a major Rift spike… and by this level of energy output, it’s definitely something alive that’s coming through,” she switched the internal comm system to loudspeakers. “Sally, where is it? Can you localize it?”

“It’s an underground parking lot in Butetown, near to the Cardiff Bay railway station,” a female voice answered. “I’m dispatching the coordinates to Mickey and Andy’s PDAs”

“Send them to mine, too,” Captain Harkness rose. “We’re gonna take a look.” He glanced at Director Jones. “What do you think, Ianto? Shall we toss our future team medic into deep water right away?”

Director Jones shook his head. “You can take him with you, but as an _observer_ , nothing else. Martha, would you mind helping us out with this? I cannot send Owen _and_ a newbie we haven’t even hired yet. It could be dangerous.”

Doctor Jones grinned happily. “I thought you’re never gonna ask,” she patted Tom on the back. “C’mon, Tom, you’ll like this. We’ve always been a good team, you and me.”

“I’ll have to take your word on that,” Tom replied, since he didn’t remember any of it, but followed her obediently.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
The two travelling creatures picked themselves up from the hard concrete floor of the underground parking lot and checked their limbs for bruises and injuries. Travelling via spatio-temporal anomalies was always a rough ride, but this time they had no other choice. 

They had outstayed their welcome on the last planet they had visited, drawing too much unwanted attention – but it couldn’t be helped. Their species had a ravenous appetite during the procreating cycle; which was the reason why only a few of them could live permanently on any given planet. No level of camouflage could hide the aftermath of a major hunting spree in the long run.

They were vaguely humanoid in appearance: stockily built, with strong limbs, yellow-ish, hairless skin that tended to wrinkle after they had reached maturity, bald bulbous heads and clawed hands that could easily tear the hide of a rhino or an elephant to pieces. They were also carnivorous predators, as their pointy, blackened teeth would promptly reveal to the schooled eye.

Being a nocturnal species by nature, their red eyes could see in almost complete darkness, but were easily blinded by harsh sunlight. Prolonged exposure to ultraviolet rays could lead to permanent blindness in extreme cases. Which was why they preferred subterranean habitats and why the male of the couple was unhappy with their destination.

“I can’t see the reason in coming here,” he growled. “This is a Level Five planet; if the Judoon pick up our trail, they can execute us without bothering to ask questions first. _And_ it’s an extremely bright planet; the ozone layer of the atmosphere has been dangerously weakened. We could be easily harmed; and our spawn, too.”

“We won’t stay here long enough for any environmental dangers to take effect,” his life-mate answered dismissively. “And the Judoon won’t pick up our trails so easily. This is a backwater planet in the lowly suburb of their galaxy; not important enough to be monitored all the time. By the time they’ve figured out where we’ve gone, we’d have moved on already. It’s a good place to breed, though. The indigenous population is high in numbers, and the females of the species have a strong maternal instinct. They won’t have the spawn simply removed and killed like on that other planet. Besides,” she added with a display of sharp fangs, “their taste is delicious. Very tender, too. We’ll feed well while we’re here.”

“We need to find a lair first,” the male one said, concerned. “The eggs will be ripe to be transferred in a very short time now. _And_ we need to find something to eat shortly, if we want to keep them alive and well.”

The female looked at him worriedly. The crossing of the anomaly had taken its toll on him: his skin was sallow and his eyes were an unhealthy, pale pink. He needed nourishment, and soon, or else he wouldn’t be able to keep alive the eggs he was carrying.

“Do you have enough strength left to change?” she asked. “We must go hunting to replenish your energy.”

“I _can_ change,” he replied tiredly, “but I might not have the strength to hunt. I’m sorry.”

“Nonsense,” she said. “You’re weak, but that’s not your fault. You still haven’t fully recovered from that failed egg transfer last time. It’s a miracle that you’ve survived at all. Change and stay put – _I’ll_ hunt and feed you properly. _Then_ we’ll go on and find a suitable host for our spawn.”

Last time, he hadn’t been able to transfer the eggs to a host. He’d gotten shot, and the eggs he’d carried beyond term died and infected his entire system. She’d torn their attacker to pieces with her bare hands, but that hadn’t really helped him. He’d been very ill, for almost a full cycle; procreating while he was still weakened had been a great risk, but they had no other choice. They would have become infertile if they didn’t, and infertility was something their species didn’t tolerate.

That had been the reason why she’d chosen this particular planet, despite the environmental risks. The indigenous species was weak, much weaker than them, generally unaware of the existence of life beyond their little dirtball, and they had no sufficient weapons to kill her or her life-mate. Plus, they were similarly shaped in appearance, so the necessary changes would be minor and require very little energy.

She consulted her data storage device to create the perfect illusion. There were more than enough details to work with, and the outline a fairly simple one.

“Like this,” she showed it to her life-mate. “I’ll show you; they’re really easy to mimic.”

She concentrated and morphed. Within the blink of an eye, she became a typical female of the local race: slim, compared with her true form, fair-skinned with shoulder-length yellow hair. The hair bothered her a little – her own species didn’t have it, and it kept getting into her eyes, but that couldn’t be helped. The indigenous females _all_ had it; if she wanted to blend in, she couldn’t get around having it, either.

“Your turn now,” she said.

But her life-mate did not listen. He was staring at the big, bald-headed creature approaching them in a crouched position. It had clawed hands, wrinkled, grey skin, small, deep-set eyes and a big mouth, full of pointy teeth. It was also at least a head taller than either of them – and looked dangerous.

“You said the locals are harmless!” he said.

She glared at the… _thing_ in annoyance. “They are! This isn’t one of them. In fact, this isn’t a species that should be on this planet to begin with. Doesn’t matter, though,” she changed back to her true form smoothly. “Food is food. It might be a bit stringy, but it’s big enough to last for a while.”

With a shriek, she jumped at the creature, using the effect of surprise.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dr. Jan van Nellen, Dr. Charles Quinn and Gerald Carter are actually canon characters, briefly shown in the second season episode “To The Last Man”.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
**CHAPTER 04**

Tom didn’t have time to ask any questions – or to protest against being taken out to a field mission without preamble. Captain Harkness was already bursting through the cog door, with a dramatic swish of coat.

“Tom, Martha, you’re with me and PC Andy. Mickey Mouse, get the SUV. Sally, you help Tosh with the comms and the CCTV. Tosh, I want the area sealed off by the time we arrive there.”

Without a further word, he raced along the corridor towards the lift, with a tall, curly-haired blond young man, whose name was apparently Andy, hot on his heals. Tom and Doctor Jones looked at each other for a moment; then she grabbed the medkit Owen Harper was holding out for her and launched herself after the two men.

“Go on,” Director Jones said to Tom. “They won’t wait for you; that’s a luxury we cannot afford.”

The warning broke Tom out of his reverie and he jogged after the others, barely catching up with them at the lift. The cabin was a bit of a tight fit for four grown people, which Captain Harkness actually seemed to enjoy, if Doctor Jones’ eyeroll was any indication.

“Jaack!” she said warningly. Captain Harkness grinned unrepentantly.

“What? If your candidate can’t take a bit of discomfort, how is he gonna deal with Weevils? It isn’t a safe thing, working for Torchwood, you know.”

“He’s not _my_ candidate; he’s _yours_ ,” Doctor Jones returned sternly. “And you may fight it hard to believe, Jack, but Ianto is the only one here who actually _enjoys_ being harassed by you. We others just put up with your manners… or the lack of them.”

“You can’t call it harassment,” Captain Harkness argued with a weird turn of logic Tom found hard to follow,” since Ianto’s my boss now.”

Doctor Jones shook her head and laughed with fond exasperation. “You’re impossible, Jack!”

To Tom’s surprise, the merriment was gone from Captain Harkness’ face as if wiped away. “Yeah, I’ve been called _that_ occasionally.”

“Oh, Jack, I’m sorry!” Doctor Jones back-pedalled hurriedly. “That wasn’t what I meant, honestly!”

“I know,” Captain Harkness replied with a somewhat forced grin. “Besides, you love me nonetheless, don’t you?”

“Of course I do, you old fool, do you really need to ask?” Doctor Jones patted his arm in an almost motherly manner, leaving Tom wondering what did connect these two and how it worked.

His thoughts were interrupted by the large black Torchwood SUV pulling up in the middle of the pedestrian area. The tough-looking young black guy Captain Harkness had called Mickey Mouse leaned out from the driver’s seat.

“Get in, you lot, before the coppers spot us!” he urged them. “There are only so many traffic violations Ianto can smooth over by bribing them with orgasmic coffee.”

Doctor Jones jumped into the back seat at once, Tom and the young man called PC Andy squeezing in with him. Captain Harkness took the passenger seat and called the base while Mickey drove off the Plass.

“Tosh, is the area sealed off already?” he asked.

“It’s all yours,” the voice of Doctor Sato answered. “We’re lucky; PC Bridges is on early shift today. He won’t interfere with our investigation. Sally’s monitoring the site, but there’s no movement right now.”

“Could have some Weevils slipped through again?” PC Andy asked.

“Not ones that we’d already tagged in any case,” a different female voice answered. “We’ve got no signal at all. Not from a standard chip anyway. All I can read is residual Rift energy.”

“No movement, though?” Captain Harkness asked.

“Not anymore,” the female voice, presumably that of the technician monitoring Rift activity, replied. “I’m sorry, Captain, but you’ll have to go and see it for yourselves.”

“Thanks, Sally, that’s really helpful,” Captain Harkness’ voice was dripping with sarcasm. Then he looked at the driver. “Well, Mickey Mouse, you’ve heard the lady. And stomp down on the bloody accelerator, will you? We don’t have all day; that was an awfully big Rift spike.”

Mickey, holding the steering wheel with one hand, gave him a two-fingered mock salute. “Aye aye, Captain Cheesecake, sir!”

And then he floored the accelerator indeed.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
“And you really think she’d have the strength to work for Torchwood?” Ianto studied Beth Halloran’s file, put together and placed on his desk by Rhys. “She makes a sensitive impression.”

“She _is_ sensitive,” Rhys agreed, “but she’s stronger than she looks. And she’s a smart lady; a very good temp, and technically savvy, too. As long as Jack can cut back on the flirting and the innuendo, she’ll be fine.”

“I’ll warn Jack off,” Ianto promised; then he laid the file to the side and smiled. “So, how are the preparations running?”

“Well enough,” Rhys grinned contentedly. “My Dad has found just the right place for the wedding banquet.”

“Which would be…?” Ianto inquired.

“The Orangery at Margam Park,” Rhys explained.

Ianto whistled. “A good choice, even though well outside Cardiff. It’s a beautiful old building; especially those windows are gorgeous. But isn’t that a Grade One listed building?”

“It is,” Rhys said, “but organizing weddings is their way to finance keeping it in shape.”

“What about bridesmaids?” Ianto asked. “Has Emma already chosen them?”

Rhys shrugged. “There ain’t much of a choice, really. She doesn’t know all that many people close to her age. That leaves Sally, basically. She was briefly thinking of Jade and Alesha, some girls she met in a safe house right after her arrival, but they haven’t had any contact since then, so…” he shrugged again. 

The truth was, Emma didn’t have any friends outside Torchwood – just like the rest of them. Rhys himself and Andy were the only exceptions.

Ianto nodded his understanding. “We could ask Detective Fenner,” he suggested. “She’s fairly young, single and pretty – a bride ought to have at least two bridesmaids, and she would make a nice contrast with Sally. I can ask her…”

“Nah, I’ll do that,” Rhys said. “I wanna ask Detective Swanson if her little daughter would make the other flower girl – that is, if your niece is willing.”

Ianto smiled. “Oh, I’m sure Mica will be excited – if she can wear a pink dress, that is. She’s very fond of pink; she won’t be persuaded to wear any other colour on a wedding.”

“That would be all right,” Rhys laughed. “It’s tradition, after all, and you know how big Emma is on tradition.”

“That’s settled, then,” Ianto said. “I‘m having dinner with my sister’s family tonight. I can ask them.”

“Can you give them the invitation at the same time?” Rhys asked, handing him the long, narrow cream-coloured envelope with the design of two interlinked golden rings adorning it. Ianto pocketed it with a nod.

“Is there anything else I could help you with?” he asked. He was the man with the contacts, after all.

Rhys shook his head. “Nah, Emma and me have everything under control. You still giving her away, ain’t you?”

“Of course,” Ianto said. “We’re the only family she has. Tosh declared herself ready to play the role of the bride’s Mam. It’s gonna be a bit strange, but that’s Torchwood for you... _what_?” he asked, as Rhys suddenly began to laugh hysterically.

It took some time until he was capable of giving any coherent answer.

“You know, after Gwen had thrown me out onto the street, I never thought I’d have a _Torchwood_ wedding, after all,” he finally said, wiping the tears of mirth from his eyes. Then he rose. “Well, I’m gone now. Flat Holm day and all that.”

Ianto nodded gratefully. Ever since he’d hired Rhys, the good-natured Welshman visited the asylum on Flat Holm Island once a week, looking after possible needs, talking to nurses and inmates and making everyone feel a bit better and cared for. It was a natural gift, and it made Ianto’s life a great deal easier, taking one massive burden off his shoulders. One of the many reasons he was glad having offered the man the job.

Rhys finished his coffee on his feet and off he was, heading to Flat Holm Island. Ianto finished his weekly report for UNIT and the Committee in London, and went down to the main Hub area to see how the field team was doing.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Tom Milligan wasn’t sure how happy the chance made him to go on his first field mission with people who clearly knew more about him that he knew about himself, especially where his strange dreams were concerned. And while he was glad that he could at least give a name to the mysterious woman in said dreams, going out on a not closely defined yet potentially dangerous mission with the members of an organization he still had doubts of joining wasn’t his idea of a good time.

He wasn’t a coward. No coward would have held out in that bush hospital in Africa for two years, between poisonous spiders and snakes, visiting predators in the night and visiting military troops – particularly trigger-happy ones – during the day. But he preferred to _know_ the dangers he was about to face.

He stole a look at the lovely Doctor Jones, perched between him and the tall, blond guy the others called PC Andy. She didn’t seem the least bothered by the unnamed dangers waiting for them. On the contrary: she seemed positively excited. Was she an adrenaline junkie? Or did she know more about what they might find? That would be an unfair advantage on her side.

“What _is_ a Weevil?” Tom asked abruptly.

Captain Harkness, enthroned on the passenger seat like an exiled prince, turned back to him briefly, his grin positively blinding.

“I thought you’re never gonna ask,” he declared, clearly enjoying himself too much. “It’s an alien. An honest, down-to-Earth alien.”

“Sure,” Tom said dryly. “How stupid of me! I must have missed that big, honking spaceship landing atop the Millennium Centre last night.”

“The Weevils didn’t come by spaceship,” Captain Harkness said matter-of-factly. “They’ve slipped trough the Rift we’ve already told you about. From where – or _when_ – they’ve come, we still don’t know. But we do have a population of a couple of hundreds of them. They dwell in the sewers, living off… well, it’s the sewers, you can guess. As a rule, they’re quite harmless; even useful, keeping the rat population low. But sometimes the one or other comes to the surface, attacks people – then we have to deal with them.”

“How?” Tom asked with a sinking feeling in his stomach. “By killing them?”

He _had_ seen the big guns PC Andy had loaded into the boot of the SUV.

“That’s the last resort,” Captain Harkness answered. “We tag them and drive them back to the sewers if we can. Once they’d killed someone, though, we can’t risk letting them run free… and we don’t have the means to keep an entire herd of them in the vaults.”

“Feeding the few of them and cleaning their cells is bad enough,” Mickey commented without taking his eyes off the road. “Sometimes I feel like a glorified zookeeper, caught between the Weevils and Myfanwy.”

“Oh, c’mon, Mickey Mouse, you _love_ them, and you know it,” Captain Harkness leered. “You practically fought Ianto for the right of caring for them.”

Mickey shrugged, admitting defeat.

“You’ve got _aliens_ in your basement?” Tom asked, flabbergasted. “Dangerous aliens?”

“Yep!” Captain Harkness grinned almost proudly.

Tom shook his head in bewilderment. “What for?”

“Owen studies them,” Captain Harkness explained. “We hope to find a way to communicate with them; to figure out where they’ve come from and if we can send them home through the Rift one day,” he touched his earpiece. “Sally any changes yet?”

“None,” the voice of their technician answered. “It’s either dead… or not a Weevil at all.”

“Great,” Captain Harkness grimaced. “How far are we yet, Mickey Mouse?”

“About half a kilometre,” their driver replied, turning from Lloyd George Avenue into Bute Street, in a manner that violated at least half a dozen traffic rules. “Get ready, guys, we’re almost there.”

Unknown to Tom, it would have been almost simpler to walk from the Millennium Centre to the Cardiff Bay railway station – but they needed the SUV and its technology in case there actually _was_ any alien (or alien technology) to capture or contain. The station itself – a Grade Two listed building from the year 1840 – was clearly visible before them, and in a short distance from it, a big neon sign clearly marked the underground parking lot where the Rift spike had been registered.

“PC Andy, you’re gonna handle the scanner,” Captain Harkness ordered. “Tom, you’ll stick to him. This is your first day in the field, you’re here to observe how we do things here, so don’t get in the way. Martha, you and Mickey Mouse will come with me and contain the situation. Understood?”

There were multiple nods of acknowledgement, and then Mickey drove the SUV right to the parking sing and stomped down on the brakes. The vehicle came to a screeching halt about five inches from where the yellow police tape was sealing off the area from the traffic. Tom did his best to persuade his stomach that it had no reason to empty itself. Mickey definitely had a semi-suicidal driving style.

A tall, dark-skinned police constable with the smooth, even features of an African ebony carving came to guide them. He was wearing a tac vest over his uniform and a radio fastened to said vest on his left shoulder, so that he could speak into it and still have both hands free.

“Torchwood!” Captain Harkness told him curtly.

That earned him an eyeroll from the constable. 

“No shit, Captain – I can _read_ , you know.” Then he discovered PC Andy and grinned. “Hey, Andy!”

PC Andy shook hands with him. “Shaun! Good to see you, man. Is the area secured?”

The constable nodded. “Yeah, nobody went in or left since we arrived, about twenty minutes ago. You taking over from here?”

“Afraid so,” PC Andy said apologetically. 

The other one shrugged. “That’s fine with me. I have a bar brawl to break up anyway. It’s all yours.”

With that, he climbed into the police car waiting nearby and drove off. PC Andy went to the rear of the SUV, took a couple of fairly big guns out of the boot, handed one to Mickey and kept the other one for himself. Captain Harkness took an old-fashioned Webley out of its holster and handed Tom a can of what looked like deodorant or air freshener or whatnot.

“What is this?” Tom asked.

“Weevil spray,” PC Andy explained. “It calms them down, makes them a bit dizzy, so that we can overwhelm them a bit easier. Just keep it ready, so that you can spray them, should they head your way and you’ll be quite safe.”

Tom didn’t found that piece of information truly reassuring but decided to do as he was told in the case of an emergency. Meanwhile, Captain Harkness was organizing their approach already.

“PC Andy, you go right. We’ll head down in the middle of the parking lot and circle around on the left. Whatever it is that set off the alarm, we can approach it from both sides and catch it.”

PC Andy gave a terse nod and swept off to the right with the big gun readied in one hand and a quietly beeping scanner in the other one.

“It’s about a hundred yards before us, at nine o’clock as seen from my position,” he told his boss.

Captain Harkness nodded, activated something n his wrist strap and hurried off, with Doctor Jones and Mickey in tow. After a moment of hesitation, Tom followed PC Andy dutifully.

The underground parking lot was huge and badly lit, with a low ceiling: the ideal place for an ambush. It also stank bestially: of rotting food and whatever other waste had been downloaded in the shadowy corners. Including dead rats, most likely. Tom fought to withstand the urge to throw up, taking shallow, even breaths through his mouth – a practice he’d made custom during his years in Africa.

The same practice made it easy for him to recognize the nauseatingly sweet stench of death and decay.

“There must be a corpse somewhere,” he warned.

PC Andy nodded tersely again, slowed down, and then stopped entirely. So did Tom in his tracks, nervously wiping his sweaty palms on his trousers; his heart hammered so wildly in his chest that he was afraid the ex-constable could hear it from afar. PC Andy touched his earpiece.

“Captain, are you in position?” he asked in a low voice. “We think there’s a corpse nearby… based on the stench.”

“Understood,” the voice of Captain Harkness came through the comms. “Sally says we just have a turn to the right now. That would be a turn to the left for you. Ready?”

“Ready,” PC Andy was coiled as he peered around the corner, then he threw a warning glance back at Tom. “Don’t move! I’ll call you when it’s safe.”

With that, he sprang around the corner and out of sight. Tom was left immobile, with a thundering heart, for a long moment, before he pulled himself together and followed the ex-constable. This might have been a new situation for him, but he’d be damned if he stayed behind like a coward.

He was met by quite the sight.

In the middle of the mostly empty parking lot a mangled creature lay on the filthy concrete floor. It was humanoid in general appearance, even wearing a tan coverall like those worn by janitors or sewer workers, but it was clearly neither. If its sallow, wrinkled face weren’t a dead give-away, the unproportionally wide mouth, full of razor-sharp, yellow fangs that were fletched in the painful grimace of death would have been. 

Or the large, taloned paws.

It was also quite dead; and its death hadn’t been an easy one, if the state of its corpse was any indication. Not even in Africa, where people still regularly fell victim to hungry predators (not to mention land mines) had Tom ever seen a body this badly maimed. The belly of the creature was torn open, and whatever inner organs it might have had, had been removed. 

Presumably eaten.

PC Andy suddenly turned away and ran off. Tom could hear him retching from a short distance, and it surprised him a little. He thought Torchwood agents were used to seeing blood and gore and death in the line of their work. But perhaps the ex-constable had a sensitive stomach – the stench was truly beyond imagination.

Captain Harkness and Mickey, on the other hand, eyed the half-eaten… thing with detached interest.

“Well, it _was_ a Weevil, after all,” Mickey commented. “ _Was_ being the key word here.”

But Captain Harkness shook his head and looked grimmer than Tom had ever seen him so far.

“The Weevil wasn’t what caused the Rift alarm,” he said. “They hardly ever register on the scans when they slip through; and besides, we haven’t had a newcomer for years.”

“What was it then?” Mickey asked.

“I don’t know,” Captain Harkness was deadly serious. “But it was apparently strong enough to kill a Weevil without suffering a scratch – look, its talons aren’t even bloodied – and these guys are strong enough to tear a grown man to pieces with their bare hands. Any creature that can do _this_ to a Weevil is bad news in my book.”

Mickey nodded in agreement. “Are we gonna take it to the Hub or whatnot?”

“Yes, we need an autopsy. Perhaps we’ll find a clue that tells us who – or _what_ – killed it.”

“Which would give us an idea which calibre to use when we find it,” Mickey said practically; then he looked around. “Hey, PC Andy, if you’re done retching, we have a dead Weevil to collect!”

PC Andy was already coming back, wiping his mouth and grimacing in disgust. “And I thought I’d already seen it all,” he said. Mickey shrugged.

“You’ll never have _that_ , man. Not with Torchwood. This job always comes up with surprises; with unpleasant ones, usually. All right, Little Miss Highfalutin’,” he said to Doctor Jones, “if you could spread the body bag on the floor, Andy and me’ll deal with the rest.”

Doctor Jones did as she was asked, and the two field agents manhandled the dead Weevil into the bag with practiced ease. To be fair to PC Andy and his weak stomach, it _did_ stink bestially – but again, it was a creature that lived in the sewers and ate rats, what else could one expect? Seeing Tom’s disgusted face, Mickey grinned.

“It’s a dirty, smelly job, but someone’s got to do it,” he declared solemnly.

Somehow Tom had the impression that he wasn’t talking about this particular mission alone.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
_Monsieur_ Richarte, the master tailor of _Peletier’s_ , was humming to himself contently while finishing the last touches on the bridesmaid’s dress for _Mademoiselle_ Emma’s upcoming wedding. It was a dream in pale mauve chiffon, every bit as elegant and almost embarrassingly simple as the bride’s own dress. Only someone like him, a true artist at heart could truly value the ingenuity of the design. And the bridesmaid, a pretty blonde, had looked gorgeous in it when she’d tried it on.

As a rule, _Monsieur_ Richarte greatly disliked amateurs who thought they could misuse his skills for their ridiculous ideas, just because they had money. That was why he made them pay heavily for that affront. But _Mademoiselle_ Emma was different. That young lady had a true eye for style and elegance… and a refined taste one rarely found among today’s shallow youth. As if she had come from an earlier time; from a time when _he_ had been young.

Like _Monsieur_ Poirot, the immortal detective of _Madame_ Christie, to whom he bore a marked resemblance in looks, _Monsieur_ Richarte had great appreciation for the finer aspects of life. That so very few people shared his appreciation, especially among the young, saddened him occasionally. Finding a kindred spirit like _Mademoiselle_ Emma was refreshing. So yes, he worked on the dresses for her wedding with great delight and was actually considering making her a wedding gift – he just hadn’t decided yet what would be appropriate.

His thoughts were rudely interrupted by the sounds of a loud argument, coming from the front of the shop where they displayed the ready-made clothes. He could hear Auguste, the _maitre’d_ – a fine, elegant man whom he’d never call a shop assistant, that would have been mundane and an insult to Auguste’s abilities – politely refuse to give any information to some woman who was clearly not taking _no_ for an answer.

Considering that he was also the owner of _Peletier’s_ – a fact that very few people were aware of – _Monsieur_ Richarte decided to interfere. Auguste was excellent at dealing with customers, but this sounded like something else. The master tailor put down the small box full of safety pins and went to the rescue of his employee.

Auguste looked at his small yet authoritative boss with a look of mingled relief and gratitude. He really wasn’t good at dealing with rude people, and the short, pale, freckled woman with the terrible fashion style had been most unreasonable. He had told him – firmly but politely – that they could not give her any information about their customers, but she just kept waving that ridiculous police badge in his face and demanded to know where a certain wedding was about to take place.

She was babbling some nonsense about a covert investigation – honestly, how covert _could_ it be if she had just told him about it? Plus, there was something in her unnaturally wide eyes that made him uncomfortable. So yes, he was more than grateful for _Monsieur_ Richarte’s intervention.

“Is there a problem, Auguste?” the _patron_ asked in a high, authoritative voice.

The woman whirled around in annoyance, her too long forelock swapping across her face. “I require information concerning the wedding of a certain Rhys Williams. It’s part of an investigation, and it’s vital that I know where and when the wedding will take place, but this man refuses to tell me _anything_!”

“I should 'ope so, if 'e intends to keep 'is job,” _Monsieur_ Richarte said calmly. “Our customers trust our discretion, and we’re not going to misuse their trust.”

“But this is a police investigation…” she began, but he interrupted her.

“In that case I would demand to see an official search warrant for our business books first… and I don’t think you can produce one, _Mademoiselle_. That’s a badge for the Cardiff constabulary; you 'ave no jurisdiction in Swansea, unless you come back with one of the local policemen. In any case, I’d respectfully ask you to leave my shop now, or else I’d see it necessary to call your colleagues and you can clear territorial rivalries among each other.”

The policewoman – _if_ she was truly one, which he seriously doubted – was staring at him with bulging eyes and her mouth hanging literally open, in the successful impersonation of a blowfish. It took her several tries until she was able to speak again.

“This is not over yet,” she said in a pitiful attempt to sound threatening.

“ _Au contraire_ ,” _Monsieur_ Richarte said calmly. “You’ll leave and never bother us again, or I’ll file an official complaint with the local police. Good day, _Mademoiselle_.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
They hauled the dead Weevil onto the metallic autopsy table in the sunken medical area unceremoniously. Owen Harper, now wearing a white lab kit, came out from wherever he had been hiding and gave the mutilated copse a look of cool, critical interest.

“It’s finds like this that can drive one to drinking,” he commented. “Been there, done that, still have the tremors and the psychosis, unfortunately.”

“Is Doctor Connolly still here?” Captain Harkness asked.

Harper pulled a face. “The formidable and voluptuous Doctor Connolly’s gone back to _St. Helen’s_ to do ‘some actual work’ for a change,” he made quotation marks with his hands and Tom couldn’t help but notice that those hands twitched involuntarily.

Captain Harkness shrugged. “Well, we’ve got another two doctors here; either Martha or Tom can do the autopsy.”

“No,” Harper said bluntly before Tom could have protested. “No offence to the lovely Doctor Jones, but I won’t allow someone fresh out of medical school to dissect an alien in _my_ autopsy bay. Not even an already dead alien. And before you’d try to get all bossy on me, let me tell you two things: like it or not, Teaboy is the boss here now, and he actually agrees with me. So back the fuck off, will ya?”

“Martha’s a medical officer at UNIT and an expert on alien life,” Captain Harkness seemed to take Harpers mistrust in Doctor Jones’ abilities personally. Harper, on the other hand, apparently wasn’t bothered by that at all.

“Based on what?” he asked acidly. “On a good word your precious Doctor has laid in for her? Well, tough shit, Harkness; this is Torchwood, and in case you’ve forgotten, we ain’t exactly the lead members of his fanclub. And until Teaboy’s hired a new team medic, I still have the last word in this med bay,” he looked at Tom. “Well, Milligan? Ready to slice up your first alien?”

“You’d let _him_ do the autopsy but not Martha?” Captain Harkness glared at the doctor with utmost annoyance. Harper rolled his eyes.

“Fuck it, Jack, unlike your little lady friend here, Milligan is a trained doctor, an assistant surgeon, with _years_ of experience under his belt. So yeah, since he’s worked at the A &E and used to operate under inconvenient circumstances in bush hospitals, I actually _do_ trust him not to screw up royally. What are the credentials of the lovely Doctor Jones again? The word of your omniscient Doctor? Well, that just ain’t enough here. We no longer play favourites.”

Captain Harkness, obviously hurt and angry, was about to say something he might have regretted later, but Doctor Jones laid a restraining hand upon his forearm.

“Jack, leave it,” she said quietly. “He’s right. I might have seen hundreds of weird aliens while travelling with the Doctor, but I’ve never done an autopsy on my own. Doctor Milligan is better suited for this than I am.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Tom said uncomfortably, but Harper waved off his concerns.

“Piece of piss, man. You’ll have to learn how we do things here if you’re gonna take the job anyway,” he said. “Besides, you won’t have to get shoulder-deep into its guts right away. We’ve got an alien medical scanner that can pick up deep tissue damage precisely. And since we already know what a Weevil is supposed to look like in the inside, we’ll only have to actually cut he body open if we find any significant differences.”

“You managed to get the Bekaran scanner working?” Captain Harkness asked in surprise. Harper nodded.

“Sally and Teaboy were going through One’s medical archives and found the personal journal of a certain Doctor Jan van Nellen. _That_ led them to the studies of alien anatomy done by Doctor Charles Quinn, my predecessor here, and the only doctor who’s ever got to see a Bekaran in the flesh. He mentions in his _Alien Anatomy_ that Bekarans had seven fingers on each hand, with two opposable thumbs.”

“No wonder we had difficulties operating the scanner,” Captain Harkness muttered.

Harper nodded again. “Yeah. But for two people working on it at the same time, it’s amazing how many different scans it can do.”

“Do you have any X-rays or CTs about what a Weevil with all his organs intact is supposed to look like?” Tom asked. “It would be helpful.”

“We’ve got something a lot better,” Harper replied proudly. “We’ve got a 3D holographic projector that produces a transparent image – trust me, you’re gonna have the treat of your life!”

“You bet I will!” Tom knew he was grinning like a loon but couldn’t help it. After years upon years of working under less than ideal circumstances, with inferior equipment, this was almost too good to be true.

All of this was simply too exciting. It was beyond his humble imagination. It was pure science fiction, and despite the dirty and dangerous aspect of it, he already loved it.

“Do you have a scrub for me?” he asked. “One I’d actually fit in, not one of yours, that is. Or am I supposed to spray it on with some weird alien gizmo?”

Harper grinned. “Nah, unfortunately not even we have that kind of tech here. C’me on, one of Doctor Connelly’s ought to fit. She’s a large lady, after all,” he glanced at Doctor Jones. “You can assist him if you want.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Twenty minutes later three doctors were busily examining the dead Weevil on the autopsy table. The ex-SOCO lady, Sara Lloyd, had also put on a scrub and joined them to take blood and DNA samples for her lab.

“We keep a close eye on the Weevil population,” she explained. “A sudden baby boom among them could cause serious problems. Strangely enough, though, their numbers seem to remain steady; there haven’t been significant differences for decades. Whether it’s a conscious effort on their side or genetically encoded is everyone’s guess.”

“What do we know about them at all?” Tom asked with great interest, studying the slowly spinning 3D-projection of two naked Weevils that looked pretty much the same, at least on the outside. “Are they sentient?”

“That’s hard to tell,” Harper admitted. “They ain’t that big at speech, ya know. I assume they might be mildly telepathic, though. Or empathic at least. They seem to react to human emotions sometimes – especially to strong ones.”

“That’s _your_ theory,” Lloyd said, clearly sceptical about that. “ _Quinn’s Anatomy_ presumes that they’re just like wild animals – they do what they need to do to live. Mostly, that means staying in the sewers and minding their own business.”

“Which is?” Tom asked, his eyes still on the 3D-projection.

The completely alien physiology fascinated him, and now he started to make out the inner differences. Whatever the Weevils might be, they clearly had something common with lizards; anatomically speaking. He thought he could recognize some of the internal organs.

“Eating rats,” Lloyd told him bluntly. “They do have their use, but that doesn’t mean they’re sentient.”

“And yet they’re wearing clothes,” Tom pointed out. “Which animal does that?”

Harper waved off his argument impatiently.

“That’s learned behaviour,” he explained. “When they first got noticed, a century or so ago, people understandably panicked seeing something most definitely _not_ human wandering around in Bute Park. _Naked_. So Gerald Carter, who was the head of Torchwood Cardiff at that time, ordered to put them into coveralls to hide the differences in their anatomy.”

“And that worked?” Tom asked doubtfully.

Harper shrugged.

“It still does. At a distance no-one can see that they ain’t human.”

“But doesn’t that endanger the people of Cardiff?” Doctor Jones asked, concerned. “Letting such dangerous creatures run free?”

“Sometimes, yeah,” Lloyd admitted. “Which is why we keep an eye on them. When one of them leaves the sewers, we catch it, tag it and send it back. That usually works. Aside from a few isolated cases, they aren’t a violent species. It’s the same as with dogs.”

“Actually,” Harper corrected, “more people get hurt by dogs – often by their own ones – in a week than by a Weevil attack in a year.”

“That’s strange, considering that they’re clearly predators,” Tom said. “Reptiloid carnivores, if I interpret the form of their internal organs correctly. And yet you say they’d return to the sewers meekly, despite some rudimentary intelligence?”

“What if they were bred as a slave race by another, higher developed species?” Doctor Jones suggested. “Like the Ood, for example. A long story,” she added hurriedly, seeing their blank faces. “I’ll tell you when we’ve got the time. But if they _were_ bred selectively to perform certain functions, that would explain the mild telepathy, the ability to adapt to new environments… even the steady numbers.”

“How that?” Lloyd asked with a frown.

“The limited ability to procreate had to be encoded in their genetic make-up,” Doctor Jones explained. “Otherwise they’d have spread all over the Earth in a _century_!”

“I always thought they had a hive mind somehow,” Harper said.

Doctor Jones shrugged.

“The two aren’t mutually exclusive,” she pointed out. “Well, gentlemen; are we going to give this particular Weevil a closer look?”

Tom took a deep breath. This was the moment of truth. If he could do this, he’d prove himself well-suited for working for Torchwood.

It took him a moment to realize that deep within he’d already accepted the job.

“All right,” he said. “Where do we begin?”

“I’d say by taking off his clothes,” Harper replied dryly.

“He?” Doctor Jones echoed. “It’s a male?”

“Looks like one,” Harper said. “As a rule, the males have a more pronounced spinal ridge.”

Tom raised a sceptical eyebrow. “That a sure sign?”

“Usually,” Harper handed him a small, hand-held black box made of a block of solid plastic… or of some metallic alloy, it was hard to tell. It had a small, currently blank screen on the top and more buttons than one could possibly use. “The Bekaran scanner will show us the truth. If it has an egg sack, it’s a girl. If not, we’ve got a boy.”

“I hate to remind you, Harper, but _this_ Weevil got all his internal organs removed.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Harper replied. “The traces of where the organs used to be attached to the rest of the body would still be visible.”

“Okay,” Tom said. “Show me what to do.”

Harper moved Tom’s hands to have the scanner laid flat over his palms.

“Hold it like this,” he instructed. “Support it with one hand and hold your fingers over the buttons here, on the right side of the screen,” he slipped a hand next to Tom’s. “Together, we can cover all the buttons on both sides. Bekarans are ambidextrous, so we’ll need both our hands for this to work properly.”

Tom sighed. Harper was more than a head shorter than he. This would be a killer on his back. But sometimes one had to make sacrifices in the service of medical science.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, the UNIT people are all canon characters. And yeah, I imagine that Rhiannon’s children had been bred better than they were shown in CoE. So shoot me!
> 
>  **Warning:** _extremely_ gross final scene!!!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
**CHAPTER 05**

“So, what have you found out about our dead Weevil?” Ianto asked four hours later.

The entire Torchwood Three team – with the exception of Rhys, who was still either on Flat Holm Island or going after some other business – was sitting in the conference room, having coffee and blueberry scones. The latter ones had been freshly baked by Emma and were much appreciated by everyone.

“Well, it’s definitely a male,” Owen answered around his mouthful of scones, “and it was killed by a very large, very aggressive predator.”

“The ragged edges of the wound clearly show that it wasn’t caused by a knife or by any other sharp weapon,” Martha added, inhaling the vapours of her coffee and closing her eyes in pleasure for a moment. “The poor creature was literally torn open and disembowelled. By fangs or, more likely, by really big talons.”

“Could it have been some big cat that had escaped from a zoo?” Tosh suggested tentatively.

Lloyd shrugged. “Theoretically? Perhaps, although not likely. The estimated angle of the attack seems all wrong. It appears to have been a bipedal creature that walked upright. It slashed the Weevil diagonally across its belly – no felines do that.”

“Besides, I’ve checked the reports of the last couple of days,” Sally Jacobs, the Rift monitor technician, added. “There were none about any escaped lions, leopards, jaguars or whatnot. So, my guess would be that it was definitely an alien that came through when we registered that big Rift spike.”

“A strong, aggressive, carnivorous alien with a preference for intestines,” Jack commented sourly. “Oh, joy! How many of those are listed in our database?”

“Eighty-five different species matching that description in the alien database of Three alone,” Ianto replied promptly. “We’ll have to run a search through the data of One with special keywords yet; last time I looked at _their_ archives, we had four hundred and twenty-five species catalogued, but some of the data hadn’t been properly filed before Canary Wharf.”

“I can do that,” Emma offered, but Sally waved off the offer.

“You’ve got enough to do with your wedding and stuff. I’ll run the search tonight; have the graveyard shift with Trevor anyway, at least it will give me something to do. Glaring at an empty screen waiting for a Rift alert is not as much fun as people might believe.”

“Perhaps I’ll be able to narrow down the search,” Lloyd said. “I’ve taken various DNA samples from the wound; the analysis is running, but it will take time until the results come, even with our alien-enhanced technology.”

“Too bad we ain’t at CSI,” Andy commented, grinning. “They always get DNA results within the hour.”

“Well, this isn’t television, this is real life,” Lloyd replied. “Getting the results within days instead of in months is pretty impressive as it is. And _if_ we find anything else than Weevil or human DNA, we can see if it has a match with out database.”

“You’ve got a database of alien DNA?” Tom Milligan was so awed he forgot even his coffee.

“We have to,” Jack explained. “Torchwood Cardiff has been dealing with aliens since the 19th century; without a database, we’d have lost orientation long ago. Fortunately, Mainframe is more than capable of dealing with any amount of data we’re throwing at her.”

“Mainframe?” Tom frowned. “Who is that? What kind of name is that anyway?”

The innocent question led to general hilarity among the Torchwood team. They’d gotten so used to think about their main computer as a living entity that they often spoke about it as of a person. A _female_ person, for some reason neither of them could explain. Well, perhaps Jack could have – he started with it, after all – but so far, he'd chosen not to.

“Mainframe is our central computer,” Tosh explained. “All our systems, programmes, security installations… practically everything is linked to her. She is, you could probably say, the living brain of the base. She makes sure that everything works as it supposed to, watches over the lesser systems independently, and makes the necessary changes, often without consulting us at all.”

Tom’s frown deepened. “You mean your computer is _alive_?” he asked doubtfully.

“In a manner, yes,” Ianto said. “According to the earliest records, she’s been here from the very beginning. Our best guess is that she started with a piece of organic technology that stranded here via the Rift. Torchwood found her and integrated her into the first base. Since then, she’s grown and spread and learned a great deal. But you can’t talk to her like in a science fiction film. She’s an artificial intelligence, but still very much a machine.”

“Too bad,” Tom muttered. “That would have been so cool.”

Tosh smiled at him. It was refreshing to see a doctor with true interest for the wonders of computer technology. “There are other ways,” she said. “I’ll show you.”

“To get us back to track,” Ianto said, “what else have you found out of the Weevil? Was it one of ours?”

“What else could it be?” Tom asked. “It was wearing clothes.”

Owen shook his head. “As I said: learned behaviour. They no longer wait for us to dress them in these days. They steal the coveralls themselves, breaking into shops selling working clothes.”

“But if it _was_ one of ours, it must have carried an identification chip,” Ianto said. “And if it did…”

“… then we might be able to track down its killer,” Tosh finished for him. “This Weevil’s missing an arm, and we _always_ inject the chip into the right upper arm, deep in the musculature, where they cannot pick it out.”

Owen rolled his eyes. “Tosh, do you have any idea how many of ‘em have we already chipped only in the last five years?”

“Four hundred and sixty-seven, twenty-six of which have died in the meantime,” Ianto told him matter-of-factly. “It’s all in the records.”

“And how many of them are male?” Owen asked.

“Two hundred and seventy-nine,” Ianto answered, without missing a beat. “Fifteen of them dead.”

Tom looked at him slightly intimidated. “That’s just… creepy,” he muttered to himself, but Owen heard it and grinned.

“That’s Teaboy for you. Well, Tosh,” he turned to their resident genius, “how are you gonna track almost three hundred Weevils and pick out the only sender currently _not_ within one of ‘em?”

“I don’t have to track them all,” Tosh replied. “Only those on the surface – or do you feel the urge to follow them into the sewers? They seem to like you; perhaps they’ll show you where the killer is hiding.”

“That would be nice for a change, but isn’t bloody likely,” Jack sighed. “We’ll have to stay on alert for the next couple of days and as soon as one of the Weevils comes to the surface, investigate. One can never know.” 

There were nods of agreement all around. Then Ianto took the initiative back.

“All right, next point,” he looked at Tom. “Doctor Milligan, now that you’ve got a first taste of what it means to work for Torchwood – are you still interested?”

The young doctor hesitated for a moment, then he nodded determinedly. “Yeah, I think I do. It’s all very confusing, even frightening in some aspects, but… where else could I get the chance to see and learn things like here; or work with equipment like yours? Such an opportunity only comes once in a lifetime.”

“Good,” Ianto said, clearly pleased. “In that case your trial period of three months begins today, effective immediately,” he turned to Emma. “Has Rhys found anything in the means of accommodation for him?”

“Not yet,” she replied apologetically. “But he thought perhaps the safe house in Splott would do for the time being… if Andy doesn’t mind.”

The ex-constable shook his curly head. “Not at all. That’s what the house if there for. It’s small, but for a single guy it will be enough, I reckon.”

“I’m sure it will do,” Tom replied, glad that he wouldn’t have to stay in the hotel all the time. Even if Torchwood was paying the bills.

“The only problem is the distance,” Andy said, “but we’ll organize a car for you. I know just the place where we can lease it.”

“You can always get yourself something permanent after the trial period,” Ianto added, seeing Tom’s hesitation. Then he rose. “Very well, people, that would be it for now. I’ll be… otherwise occupied tonight, save any emergencies. Jack, would you mind calling the shots for the rest of the day? Just like in old times?”

“You’d trust me with the Hub?” Jack asked teasingly, but his eyes were deadly serious.

Ianto tilted his head to the side.

“Jack, I’d trust you with my _life_ ; have done so repeatedly, if memory serves me well,” he replied; then he added with a deadpan face. “Besides, I’ll ask Myfanwy to keep an eye on you, just to be safe.”

At that answer, the smile finally reached Jack’s eyes.

“And in the meantime,” Tom said slowly, “you could probably tell me all those things you obviously know about me, while I myself don’t.”

“That would take time,” Martha warned.

Jack shrugged. “We have nothing else to do until the results come in, and he’s right. He _needs_ to know. All right, Tom, Martha, let’s relocate to my office… I mean to Ianto’s office, and discuss it.”

Picking up the last comment, Ianto turned back from the cog door where he was about to leave.

“Jack, I might _use_ the office now, but… it has been yours for almost a decade, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s _always_ going to be yours.”

With that, he smiled, nodded and left.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Detective Kathy Swanson, unfailingly elegant as always in her charcoal grey trouser suit, stole a glance at her wrist watch. Only one hour left, and she’d be able to go home on time for a chance and actually spend some quality time with her daughter. She always felt a pang of guilt when it came to Neesha. The girl was growing up so fast, and there had already been so many things she’d missed! Being a single mum was never easy. Neither was being a cop. The combination of the two was just short lethal.

Fortunately, today’s morning shift had been easy so far. The only strange thing had been that mutilated creature in Butetown’s underground parking lot and Torchwood had already taken it off her hands. Not that she’d mind. She was perfectly content with hunting for _human_ criminals; she didn’t feel like going after _alien_ murderers, too.

Well, not in those short moments of temporary insanity when she actually believed in murderous aliens, that is.

Her phone rang, and she picked up with a grimace, fully prepared to being called to a crime scene. “Swanson.”

“Detective, there’s a Mr Rhys Williams for you,” the officer on desk duty said.

Swanson smiled. She _liked_ Rhys Williams. Had liked him already when he’d still been Cooper’s long-suffering doormat. Liked him even more now that she was dealing with him regularly on behalf of Torchwood.

“Let him in, Sergeant,” she instructed.

A few minutes later the good-natured Welshman strolled into the bullpen, exchanging greetings and friendly jibes with the detectives and constables working there. That wasn’t new or surprising. _Everyone_ at the police station liked him; as much as they’d hated his ex.

“Detective Swanson!” he said brightly, shaking hands with her. “So good of you to see me at such a short notice!”

“Nonsense, Rhys, you know you’re always welcome,” she grinned. “Besides, this is a quiet day; aside from the half-eaten monster in Butetown, we’ve had practically no call all morning – well, save from the usual bar brawls, that is. Want a coffee? I know we can’t offer anything close to Jones’ magic, but Eiry’s is actually pretty good.”

“Thanks, I won’t say no,” Rhys practically collapsed into the proffered armchair. “Have been running across the city all day. And a visit to Flat Holm is always draining. Those poor wretches…”

Swanson nodded in understanding. She knew about the asylum on Flat Holm Island, of course. Had known since its founding a couple of years back. The police had always kept a discreet eye on Torchwood’s activities in general and on those of Captain Harkness in particular. Harkness had been a dark horse, even before having taken over in 2000, so the police chief wanted to know as much about him as possible.

Which wasn’t much, to tell the truth. Torchwood was notoriously good at covering their tracks.

But bank account movements and property changing owners were _not_ impossible to follow; especially if one had good contacts to the City Hall. Which Detective Inspector Henderson, Swanson’s immediate superior, had in spades. So they’d followed the money trail and found the asylum with its horribly disfigured, insane or otherwise damaged residents relatively easily.

Inspector Henderson was a smart, experienced man. He knew that confronting Captain Harkness about said residents and what had happened to them would be pointless. It would only lead to him conveniently forgetting about the whole thing. So he’d tried to smuggle somebody into the place; as a nurse, a janitor, a mechanic… whatever. That hadn’t worked at all, even though Andy Davidson had done his charming best to get a job. The asylum didn’t accept anyone from the outside. So the only remaining option was to watch the place from a certain distance. Which hadn’t brought much information.

It hadn’t been until the mysterious disappearance of Captain Harkness and the promotion of Mr Jones as the new head of the organization that they’d learn anything conclusive. The new Torchwood Director seemed _slightly_ less paranoid and clearly understood the meaning and necessity of cooperation. Swanson still wasn’t sure she truly believed the whole Rift in space-time thing, but even she had to admit that it explained a lot of increasingly weird things happening in Cardiff.

“So, how are the inmates doing today?” she asked, while her PA and flat-mate, Eiry Conway, placed mugs of freshly brewed coffee before her and her visitor.

Rhys shrugged. “Mostly the same. They’ve got better moments in-between long stretches of suffering. Healing chances are slim. But at least we can make them as comfortable as possible, given the circumstances. Poor things,” he tried his coffee and his face lit up. “Hey, you were right: this is pretty good!”

“Knowing what you’re used to, I’m sure Eiry would take _that_ as a compliment,” Swanson grinned. “So, what can I do for you today?”

“Actually, I came to bring you this,” Rhys handed her the invitation for the wedding, “And to ask if perhaps your daughter would like to be one of the flower girls.”

“I’m sure she would,” Swanson said, oddly touched by the request. “Who are the other ones?”

“We only have one other one,” Rhys admitted, “Ianto’s niece, Mica.”

“That won’t do,” Swanson declared. “You ought to have at least two to do things properly.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Rhys agreed. “That’s why I’m asking. Erm… we’re short a bridesmaid, too. Ianto thought perhaps Detective Fenner would be willing…”

“I’ll talk to her,” Swanson promised, not having the slightest doubt about the outcome. Moira Fenner simply _loved_ weddings – the bigger, the more pompous, the more she loved them. “But don’t you have anyone suitable in the family?”

Rhys shook his head. “I don’t; and Emma has no family left. She used to have some friends in London but none close enough.”

“I’m sure Moira will enjoy playing the part,” Swanson said. “Would it be possible to get the dresses done in time, though?”

“Oh, they’ve been pre-ordered at _Peletier’s_ ,” Rhys assured, “and Emma says the final touches can be done in no time. She can do them herself if needs must be. She can sew very well.”

“ _Peletier’s_?” Swanson whistled, impressed. “That posh French shop in Swansea? Wow! Have you robbed a bank or what?”

Rhys laughed and shook his head. “No; Emma has been saving money for a proper wedding for a while. And _Monsieur_ Richarte took a liking to her. He found her designs matching the expectations of his clientele and bought ‘em for further use. So we’ve gotten off rather well.”

“You seem to have landed a real winner with your second chance,” Swanson commented, and Rhys grinned happily. Good. After all that his ex had put him through, he more than deserved someone who would value him.

Her phone rang again and she picked it up with a resigned sigh. It had been too good to be true; a whole shift without emergencies. “Swanson.”

“M’Benga,” the voice of one of her fellow detectives answered. “I know your shift’s almost over, but I _really_ think you ought to see _this_.”

That definitely didn’t sound good. Swanson reached for her suit jacket. “I’m on my way. Have you called SOCO?”

“They’re here,” Geoffrey M’Benga replied, “but I have the unpleasant feeling that this might be something up to Torchwood’s alley.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Rhiannon Davies (née Jones) was humming to herself contentedly as she finished laying the table in the dining room. It was a small one, separated from the kitchen area by a glass parturition only, barely enough for the family and one or two guests – if they sat close enough to each other on the benches – but it was all theirs.

Besides, something better wasn’t available on this estate; not that they’d be able to afford it anyway. With Johnny’s wages and what she could earn by doing menial work at home (like packing advert leaflets and the likes) they barely managed to get from month to month.

Although she had to admit that things had gotten easier since her brother got promoted. Ianto always took his responsibilities very seriously and had helped them through the hard time when Johnny had been between jobs. Now that Johnny was working again, they could breathe a bit more freely, even if construction work meant that he was often away for days. Like tonight.

But tonight was different. Tonight Ianto would come over for dinner, and that meant they’d be able to talk, without the constant interruptions by what Johnny thought were witty remarks. Just like in old times. Before their father had died and Ianto left for London without looking back. And there _were_ things they had to talk about. She’d heard rumours about her little brother that _needed_ to be discussed.

The doorbell rang, interrupting her thoughts. The running of little feet answered immediately, as Daffy and Mica stormed down the staircase, towards the front door, both wanting to answer it. Mica won, as always – she was tiny, but feisty and determined.

“Uncle Ianto!” she squealed in delight, latching onto the only available body part of her uncle – his legs – and immobilizing him effectively, as Ianto was holding a large, gift-wrapped box that hid his entire upper body and therefore couldn’t use his hands.

“Hullo midget,” his voice came somewhat muffled from behind the box. “Would you let me in before I’d ruin your Mam’s present?”

“You brought a present for Mam?” Daffy asked in surprise, while prying Mica’s arms off their uncle’s legs. “What for? It isn’t her birthday or something, is it?” He suddenly seemed very concerned that he might have forgotten an important anniversary.

“No,” Ianto reassured him, maneuvering the oversized box carefully into the small living room and placing it on the coffee table, “but she’s been invited to a wedding, and she needs something nice to wear.”

“I have?” Rhiannon asked in surprise, taking in the looks of her brother with almost proprietary pride. He must have come directly from work, for he was wearing one of those sharp suits that would have made their father proud, with dress shoes and a deep burgundy red shirt. He looked very elegant, very refined and very professional.

“You all have,” Ianto produced a cream-coloured envelope, adorned with a design of interlinked wedding rings, from the pocket of his suit jacket. “You, Johnny, the kids; all of you.”

“Who’s getting wed?” Daffy asked, his eyes bright with curiosity.

His name was actually David, after one of his paternal great-grandfathers, at the demands of Johnny’s mother, but Rhiannon steadfastly refused to call him that, declaring that David Davies was a stupid-sounding name. So they went for the Welsh version of it. Even at school, he was registered as Dafydd Davies.

Considering that her mother-in-law had managed the registration behind Rhiannon’s back, while she’d been lying unconscious in the maternity ward – it had been a very long, very stressful process to give birth to her son – her bitterness was understandable. Besides, Ianto also thought that David Davies sounded stupid. Especially for such a bright child.

“Two of my co-workers are getting married to each other,” he explained to his nephew. “And since neither of them has any children in their family, they’d like you to carry the rings for them, and Mica to be one of the flower girls.”

“Oooh!” Mica’s eyes became impossibly wide with awe. “Mam, can I? I can, right?”

“I don’t know, dearest,” Rhiannon didn’t want to make promises she might not be able to keep. “A flower girl’s dress is awfully expensive, you know, and…”

“That’s all right,” Ianto interrupted. “The flower girls will have identical dresses, courtesy of _Peletier’s_. It’s a loan to the bride, and we won’t have to pay but a smell fee for them.”

“Well, in that case I s’pose we can do it,” Rhiannon was still a tad doubtful but didn’t want to destroy that expression of absolute joy on Mica’s little face.

The girl was beaming like a beacon. “But _will_ they be pink, Uncle Ianto?” she then asked anxiously. “Flower girls _must_ wear pink, you see.”

“Yeah, midget, they _will_ be pink,” Ianto reassured her, bending the truth just a little bit. Mauve, the colour both the bridesmaids and the flower girls would be wearing, was close enough to pink, after all. “A very specific, elegant shade of pink.”

That seemed to satisfy Mica, and so Ianto could turn back to his sister. “Rhi, why don’t you put on your new dress and let us see how it fits? We’ll be waiting here so far.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Martha Jones drove directly to the UNIT base from the Hub. She usually worked the afternoon shift, so that she could catch up with Torchwood about the events of the previous night in the morning. This was part of her duties as the official UNIT liaison; plus, this way she could work deep into the night uninterrupted if she had to. Which was way too often the case.

But she wasn’t complaining. The research was interesting, the payment was good, and she always had someone within reach who could understand her like no-one else. Now if only her vague plans concerning a certain Doctor Thomas Milligan would make a little headway!

She and Jack had told the young doctor everything about The Year That Never Was. 

About Prime Minister Harold Saxon, who had been, in truth, an insane, murderous, time-travelling alien. 

About the Doctor, a member of the same highly advanced, ancient race, in whom they had laid all their hopes. 

About Jack’s… _special condition_ and the consequences he’d had to suffer during The Year That Never Was. 

About the Toclafane; who they’d originally been and what they’d become, how and why.

About Martha’s mission to save the world and about Tom’s own role in the events that had enabled her to do so.

All in all, it had been quite the info dump, and Tom had left shortly thereafter, in the company of Andy, to get himself a rent car and to move his things into the safe house in Splott. Mostly, though, to process all the information dumped onto his lap unceremoniously and to get used to such weird concepts as time travel, various timelines, intersecting timelines, alternate timelines, the resetting of Time itself and suchlike. 

The whole wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff.

Martha still wasn’t sure he’d be able to deal with all that. Hell, she wasn’t sure _she’d_ be able to deal with it in the long run, having travelled with a Time Lord notwithstanding. Mere humans simply weren’t ready to deal with such concepts yet. Not beyond the imaginary realm of science fiction.

She turned into the long road – the last stretch of her way to the UNIT base. The soldiers watching the parameter must have spotted her already because the barrier was lifted in time, so that she didn’t have to slow down. She appreciated the gesture.

She drove right into the underground parking lot, reserved for the personnel of the base and for the occasional visitor. All cars were parked here, all the time; the base _had_ to keep an abandoned look, for safety reasons. She had been there long enough by now to recognize the cars of her co-workers: the conservative black BMW of Colonel Mace, the battered jeep of Sergeant Zbrigniew, the metallic blue corvette of Private Harris and the mini-van of Stevie Grey that also served as his mobile radar station and only he knew what else. Pandofski’s old rustbin stood beyond the van, as always.

There was _one_ car she hadn’t seen before though; and it was parked on the personnel’s side: a big, black Range Rover, the Torchwood SUV not unlike. But it had no logo or any other distinctive mark. It was simply, forbiddingly black, with tinted (and probably bullet-proof) windows and, she would swear, bullet-proof tires as well. Like some ominously blank vehicle of a spy movie.

“Whose car is that?” she asked Private Jenkins who was tinkering something on his bright red sports car, clad in a dirty, oily coverall – and very obviously off-duty.

Jenkins rolled out from under his car and got to his feet with a minimum of discomfort. His inner ear problem, courtesy of a Sontaran weapon, was still upsetting his balance, but he could deal with that fairly well by now.

“That’s the batmobile of our new, bestest friend, Agent Johnson from MI5,” he said, wiping his hands on his coverall. He still wasn’t allowed to actually _drive_ his car, for that his hands still weren’t stable enough, but he enjoyed the tinkering nonetheless. “We ain’t supposed to touch it… or even get closer than ten yards, I s’pose. Harris is quite pissed about that; he’d love to take it apart and put it together again.”

“So she’s arrived after all?” Martha asked. The mysterious MI5 agent had been expected days ago, but only a short text message about having been delayed had arrived until last night. “And is giving orders already? Charming. What’s she like?”

“Middle height, pale skin black hair, killer body,” Jenkins summarized. “In her mid-thirties, perhaps. Clad all in black; mostly in leather. When she first got out of her car, stomping down the courtyard in those heavy boots, big badass gun on her hip, Stevie nearly pissed himself in fear.”

Which was probably true. Private Grey could face the most dangerous alien with nothing more than a blunt eating knife, but he was notoriously easily intimidated by people of authority. The others often teased him about that, but it seemed too deeply ingrained in him to change at will.

“She didn’t frighten _you_ , though, I suppose,” Martha said.

Unlike Grey, Jenkins was infamous about his almost instinctive disrespect towards all kinds of authority. Martha sometimes wondered how had he managed to remain within UNIT at all.

At her question, he pulled a wry face.

“It would take more than such a cold bitch to frighten _me_ – although the complete lack of womanly charms in a supposedly female creature is frightening,” he said.

Martha shook her head in exasperation.

“You know, Private, I never thought I’d find a human being as bad as Jack Harkness when it comes to bragging and innuendo, but you’re a disturbingly close match.” _Only without Jack’s unique charms_ , she added in thought. “This isn’t gonna win you many friends.”

“Oh, they all hate me _before_ they’d fall for me and _after_ the whole thing is over,” Jenkins replied with a saucy grin. “But I never had anyone complaining _while_ we were together.”

“All five or six minutes of it? Awesome!” the rough voice of Private Harris interrupted him. “Shut your gob, Jenkins; no-one here is interested in your so-called conquests. Besides, you’re on duty in twenty; is _this_ how you’re gonna show up in the colonel’s antechamber? I’m sure he’ll have something to say about that.”

“There’s nothing a good, hot shower wouldn’t cure,” Jenkins, completely unperturbed by Martha’s presence, unzipped his coverall and peeled it off his arms and shoulders. Then he walked off with a provocative sway of hips, the upper part of the coverall hanging low enough to show off a good portion of his posterior. _At least_ three inches of it.

Private Harris rolled his eyes. He was a decent chap who respected his superiors; especially the young and pretty female version of them.

“I’m sorry, Doctor Jones. He didn’t use to be like… like _this_ , I swear! Not until he got nearly killed. That is. He must have gotten mentally unhinged or whatever, but so many of us have died that the shrinks declared everyone who could still partially function duty-ready. Come to think,” he added thoughtfully, “Stevie wasn’t so easily scared by commanding officers, either. Sure he was always deferential, but he didn’t piss his pants whenever an officer had a bad day.”

“Everyone deals with PTDS and near-death experiences differently,” Martha looked after Private Jenkins with a certain level of appreciation. “He does have a nice arse, though. I know at least two people who’d enjoy the show he puts on very much.”

Harris looked at her in surprise. “You’ve got gay friends, ma’am?”

“Actually, I was thinking of two lady friends of mine who can appreciate a nice view, but you should perhaps think about your own prejudices long and hard,” Martha said a little coldly.

Harris shrugged. “I’ve got no problems with gay people, ma’am. But Colonel Mace might, by the way he called Agent Johnson _a hard-assed, militant lesbian bitch_. So, you might want to keep your… progressive attitude to yourself, if you want to work with him permanently. Cos I don’t think you could persuade him about the wrongness of his ways.”

“Let that be _my_ problem, Private,” Martha said curtly.

“It _is_ your problem, ma’am,” the young soldier replied very seriously. “You’re new here and you’re a civilian. Crossing the colonel won’t be the wise thing to do – you’re not beyond harm’s reach. That Doctor of yours had gotten you into UNIT, cos the brass still respect him; but Colonel Mace no longer does. Not after the Sontaran invasion, although he used to before, very much so. And this being such a remote outpost, no-one from Headquarters would really give a shit if he made your life to living hell – or if he fired you.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Martha asked with a frown.

“Cos we’d like you to stay, ma’am,” Harris answered. “You’re smart, you knew your shit, whether it’s aliens or alien tech, you ain’t easily frightened and, let’s face it, you give us something pretty to look at. We’d hate to lose all that.”

Martha had to smile a bit at the back-handed compliment. At least Harris was being honest.

“I’ll try to hold back with the PR for gay rights,” she promised. “Now that you’ve told me what the _others_ think about Agent Johnson, would you mind sharing _your_ opinion with me?”

Harris gave the matter some thought.

“She’s cold, efficient, technically savvy and absolutely ruthless, as far as I can tell,” he finally said. “She’d make a useful ally – or a very dangerous enemy. My suggestion would be to stay very careful around her, ma’am.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
When Rhiannon stepped out of her and Johnny’s bedroom, slowly spinning in the new dress to display it from all sides, Ianto found himself speechless. He hadn’t seen his sister so radiant since... since that school ball, when Rhi finished school to marry Johnny shortly thereafter.

To get buried in housework and petty concerns for he rest of her life.

He’d gone for the classic “little black dress” look when selecting this outfit for her at _Peletier’s_ ; he didn’t want her to be embarrassed among all those well-clad people at the wedding. Only that the dress, reaching to mid-calf and hugging her body in the most complimentary ways while cleverly hiding little imperfections, wasn’t really black. It was a deep, warm aubergine colour that harmonized perfectly with her own natural colouring, making her skin shine in its whiteness.

The wide-cut neckline brought the smooth, round lines of neck and shoulders to the best effect, while the short sleeves prevented her from looking provocative. With he shawl and the long gloves, made of the same rich satin as the dress itself, it was a ball gown of exquisite design. Without them it was an elegant evening dress that she could wear on any festive occasions in the future.

 _Monsieur_ Richarte had been right with his suggestion. All the more surprising that he’d made it based on an old picture of Rhi’s. That man was truly a master of his trade.

As usual, Mica was the first to regain her ability of speech.

“Wow, Mam, you look like… like a princess… nah, like a queen!” she enthused. “You should wear Grandma Olwen’s necklace to this. It would look so pretty!”

Ianto nodded. That was an excellent suggestion indeed. Their mother’s cherished necklace, consisting of three white strings of pearl, was an old family heirloom, going from mother to daughter for generations. The only thing of true value their parents hadn’t lost to the recession, as they’d kept it as the last resort. It would match the dress perfectly in its elegant simplicity. 

Even if Rhiannon hadn’t touched it since their Mam had died.

“Mica is right, Rhi,” he said. “What better occasion to give those pearls a try? They’re yours, you know – you ought to wear them sometimes.”

“I don’t know, Ianto,” she replied uncertainly. “What if I lost them? What if I get mugged on the way to the wedding?”

“You didn’t think I’d let you guys take the bus there, did you?” Ianto frowned. “I asked PC Andy to fetch you with my car; he’s the most reliable driver of us. I’d come myself, but since I’ll have to stand in for the father of the bride, I’ll be busy. Well, do you like the dress?”

“ _Like_ it?” Rhiannon echoed unbelievingly. “Ianto, it’s gorgeous! It’s _beyond_ perfect! And it fits perfectly, too!”

Ianto raised a sarcastic eyebrow.

“Tad would rise from his grave and come back to haunt me if I couldn’t estimate the measures of my own sister, don’t you think?” he asked, but his eyes were twinkling.

“Most likely,” Rhiannon admitted, laughing. “Oh, Ianto, it’s wonderful! But it must have cost you a fortune.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Ianto smiled, delighting in her happiness; she more than deserved having something beautiful that would be hers and hers alone. “I can afford it. And it’s not so as if I had anyone else to spend my money on.”

“Why not, Uncle Ianto?” Mica asked with the innocent bluntness only young children could manage. “Don’t you have a girlfriend? Or you just don’t like her enough to marry her? When are _you_ getting married?”

Rhiannon had to suppress a smile as she saw her brother turn a very interesting shade of magenta. The same Ianto Jones who could face their father in his drunken rage (losing his wife and his business in the same year had been too much for Ifan Jones to bear) without blinking, was mortally embarrassed by the simple curiosity of a child. It was hilarious.

Of course Rhiannon knew – or, at least, she _thought_ she knew – why did Ianto find Mica’s question so embarrassing. That was exactly the thing she wanted to talk with her brother about… but not within earshot of the children. It was time to interfere before Ianto would become uncomfortable enough to bolt. She turned to her kids. 

“All right, you two, that was enough gawking for one day. Go and wash your hands while I change back; then we’ll have dinner. I made that spinach dip we all like, with fish and chips; and after dinner, you may play your silly video games while your Uncle Ianto and I are discussing grown-up things.”

 _That_ promise made the children obey with amazing speed – video games were so much more interesting than grown-up talk! Rhiannon shook her head with fond exasperation before vanishing in the bedroom again.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
In Bute Park, Detective Kathy Swanson was seriously considering getting violently ill. In her sixteen years with the police, she’d seen a great deal of horrible things, unspeakably gross things and heartbreakingly tragic things. None of that had prepared her for the sight waiting for them.

On a bench in the least frequented area of the Park, a man was sitting. A man in his forties perhaps, well-fed, with thinning hair and wire-rimmed glasses. Seen from behind, half-obscured by the low bushes, there seemed nothing to be wrong with him. He looked as if he’d fallen asleep in the warm midday sun. Foolish perhaps, considering the reduced ozone layer of these days, but nothing extraordinary. Not at first sight.

Not until one walked around the bench and the bushes, during which the swarming of flies should have been the first sign of warning that something was indeed very wrong with the man. That, and the sickeningly sweet stench of rotting flesh. A veteran of brutal murder scenes, Kathy Swanson fished out her special handkerchief; the emergency one generously sprinkled with lavender oil, and pressed it to her mouth and nose before continuing on her way.

Finally standing face to face with the victim, it would have been hard to overlook what was wrong with the man. His lower body was completely missing, and so were his arms, by the sight of his wounds simply ripped off his shoulders. The rest of his torso was cracked open like the shell of a crab, and his internal organs were gone, too. 

Completely disembowelled, like a slaughtered animal. To make the whole scene even more disturbing, all his clothes were neatly piled onto each other in a short distance. Nothing was missing, not even his briefcase or his purse.

“It looks like the crime scene photos from that village in the Brecon Beacons, where the Woodies nearly got eaten a year or so ago,” Detective M’Benga, a slender man with a clean-shaven head, commented. His normally warm, mahogany brown colouring had become an unhealthy ash grey from shock. “You think we might be dealing with cannibals again? What’s become of them anyway after they’d been arrested?”

“I don’t know,” Swanson admitted, shaken to the bone, “but Inspector Henderson certainly does. I’ll contact Torchwood, too. They might be able to tell us if we’re dealing with the same thing.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of the dialogue between Rhiannon and Ianto has been rewritten from the similar one in CoE. Obviously. The only thing I could accept from CoE was Ianto’s family.
> 
> The police people, as always, are the nameless extras from TKKS, with the exception of Tim Cochrane, of course. And yeah, I just couldn’t resist the hen night.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
**CHAPTER 06**

After dinner, Daffy and Mica happily returned to their respective video games, relishing in the rare chance to do so at such a late time – as a rule, they weren’t allowed to do that. Their parents – well, their mother anyway – had a very firm concept about what was good for such young children and what wasn’t.

Rhiannon put the remains of the meal away, started the dishwasher, and when all this was done, she sat down with her brother again at the now empty dining table. The whole thing had an uncomfortable resemblance to being called to the principal’s office, Ianto thought. But again, his big sister was nothing if not inquisitive.

“All right,” he said, accepting the inevitable, hoping it would be over, soon. “What do you want to talk about?”

“ _You_ ,” Rhiannon answered promptly. “You've been seen.”

“So?” he asked in confusion. “People see me all the time. Most of them have good eyes, and I’m not exactly tiny.”

Rhiannon gave him a withering look. “That’s not what I mean, and you know it, you daft sod. Susan on the corner was in town and it was her anniversary, so they went to that posh French place in town by the memorial, and there was you.”

“So…?” Ianto tried to remember who the hell Susan was but came up without a result, which was unusual. He usually did remember people. But perhaps Susan wasn’t someone he’d have already met. He had to admit that he didn’t know all that much of the private life of his sister. Or her friends.

“There was you, having dinner with a man,” Rhiannon continued unerringly.

“So… ?” Ianto still didn’t understand where the problem was. Yes, he _had_ gone to that new Fresh restaurant with Jack; it had been one of the few actual dates they’d managed to squeeze into the tight Torchwood schedule. But why would Rhi have a problem with that?

“Having dinner, with a man, in a restaurant,” Rhi went on doggedly.

Ianto was getting mildly annoyed by the whole thing. “So? You have dinner with Tina.”

He _hoped_ Rhi was still friends with Tina, as quite frankly, that was the only one of her friends he could still remember.

“Not in town,” Rhiannon declared, as if having dinner with a friend in _Cardiff_ would be the equivalent of a honeymoon in Paris. Then her eyes took on a certain… dreamy quality. “Susan said he was gorgeous. Like a film star. Like an escort.”

“That he certainly is,” Ianto replied with a content little smile, deciding to grab the bull by its horns… figuratively speaking. Sooner or later, he’d have to tell Rhi about Jack anyway, so what better time than the present?

The blunt answer silenced his sister for a moment. He could almost see the cogwheels whirring in her head at top speed. Rhi might not have had the chance for a better education, but she was no fool. Despite having married Johnny Davies, which, in Ianto’s opinion, was _not_ a sign of superior intelligence.

“Susan said it was… intimate,” she finally said, clearly shaken a bit. “I… I don’t understand it, Ianto. You used to have girlfriends. You even wanted to marry Lisa once. When did you have gone bender?”

“Mica's hearing you,” Ianto warned, glancing at the open door of the living room, where the little girl was playing her video game.

Rhiannon waved off his concerns. “She's not bothered. Her friend Sian's got two mothers.”

“But _you_ seem to be bothered,” Ianto said, a little sadly. He’d expected more understanding from his sister.

“I’m not _bothered_ ,” Rhiannon protested, “not really. I’m… _surprised_. You never tell me anything these days. Tad died, that was it, you were off. You couldn't wait. And all the time you were in London – you never came back. You never introduced me to your friends… _or_ Lisa. You hadn’t even told me about her, until she was already dead. You avoided me. Like I did something wrong. I didn't, did I?”

“It's not that,” Ianto protested, feeling more than a little guilty for how he’d treated her. It was true that he hadn’t picked up contact to Rhi and her family until after Lisa’s death. After her _second_ death by the hand of his colleagues. It had been during his suspension that he’d sought refugee by what little family he still had – and Rhi and Johnny had taken him in with open arms. “It's my job, it's difficult, it's... “

Rhiannon interrupted his pitiful attempts. “Is it true then?”

“Yes,” Ianto replied after a moment of hesitation. “Yes, I did have a dinner date with an _extremely_ handsome man in that restaurant. Happy now?”

“You're kidding me!” Rhiannon’s eyes grew to the size of twin saucers with surprise. “Really, though? Really?”

Ianto shrugged. “I thought your friend Susan saw me,” he commented dryly. But his sister needed a moment to digest the confirmation of her suspicions.

“Christ almighty!” she muttered, still trying to come to terms with the fact. Then her natural curiosity took the upper hand. “He's nice, though? Is he?”

“He’s… a bit overwhelming at times,” Ianto admitted.

“Is he?” Rhiannon’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, feeling that there was still some untold story behind her brother’s hesitation. “Since when are you together?”

That was a loaded question, because really, what did count as _together_ between him and Jack? The first time they had become intimate, after the ill-remembered episode with the cannibals? After Suzie’s second death, when Ianto had taken the initiative for the first time? Or after Jack’s return, when he’d offered to do this _right_ , whatever that might mean? Or from the very moment on that Myfanwy had conveniently dropped Jack on top of him?

“Almost a year now,” he finally said, going for the middle way.

There was a long pause after that.

“You should have said something,” Rhiannon finally said, clearly a little hurt. “We ain’t _that_ thick-headed, you know. Sure, Johnny can be a bit of a jerk sometimes, but he likes you just fine. Neither of us will turn our backs on you just because you’re seeing a man now.”

“I know,” Ianto sighed. “I never thought you would. It’s just… it’s complicated. I’m not sure where it goes myself. We’ve had a bumpy ride – perhaps it _will_ work out, after all, but it’s by no means sure. That’s why I’m not broadcasting it.”

“I won’t say a word,” Rhiannon promised. “But perhaps it’s _you_ who’s making it complicated. You always tended to overthink things a bit. Do you love him?”

Ianto nodded, slowly but without hesitation. “Yeah, I do. Probably more than it’s healthy for me.”

Rhiannon understood what that meant. Ianto had always had the tendency to put other people’s needs before his own. It was an admirable trait, but not always good for himself.

“That depends,” she said. “Does _he_ love you?”

This time Ianto did hesitate for a moment. “I think he might,” he finally said. “I think he’s getting there. But what counts is that he _needs_ me…”

“That’s not enough,” Rhiannon interrupted. “Either he wants you for yourself, not just for what you can do for him, or you should get out of the whole thing. Preferably yesterday.”

“It’s not that easy,” Ianto said unhappily. “He _really_ does need me, Rhi. I cannot abandon him.”

“Then don’t,” Rhiannon answered simply. “Be his friend, or be his lover… but don’t become his servant. That’s beneath you, and it would only destroy you. And then I’d have to kill him, slowly and painfully, and what would become of Johnny and the children if I’m in prison?”

Ianto allowed himself a genuine smile. Rhi was a force of nature when in protective big sister mode, and while he didn’t think she could actually kill anyone, she was well capable of hitting Jack – or anyone else – over the head with whatever big and heavy item came in handy if she thought they were hurting her little brother. No amount of charm or fifty-first century pheromones would work against her righteous anger.

Before he could say anything to reassure Rhi that he was a big boy and could take care of himself, his phone rang. He looked at the display and frowned. It was the number of Kathy Swanson. Something must have happened, and he had the uncomfortable feeling that his family evening would be cut short by it. Wasn’t it always so with Torchwood?

“I’m sorry, Rhi,” he said apologetically, “but I think I’d better answer this,” he picked up the call. “Detective Swanson, what can I do for you?”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Kathy Swanson felt strangely relieved to hear the calm, polite tone of the young Torchwood director. Dealing with him – as opposed to dealing with his predecessor – always helped her to put things in the right perspective. It must have been a gift.

“Jones, good that I’ve found you. I think we’re having a serious problem here.”

“What kind of problem?” he asked.

“The creature found in the parking lot last night?” Swanson reminded him. “We’ve just found another victim in Bute Park, murdered the same way, by the looks of it. Only this time it’s a human. I think the situation is escalating.”

“That’s a… disturbing thought,” Jones replied with the understatement so characteristic for him. Or perhaps he wasn’t alone. “Do you want us to take over the case?”

“I think that would be best, yeah,” Swanson admitted. “I cannot see how these two deaths would _not_ be connected to each other. And if they are, then it falls under Torchwood’s jurisdiction.”

“I agree,” Jones paused, thinking for a moment. “Very well, Detective, I’ll have the… the _evidence_ moved to our autopsy bay and try to find proof for a connection – or for the lack of it. Whatever the case may be.”

“That would be helpful, thanks; you’re better equipped to deal with such things,” Swanson glanced at M’Benga. “Although Detective M’Benga means there might be another possibility; we could be dealing with cannibals again.”

“God, I hope not!” this was one of the rare times Jones actually sounded shaken; knowing what the young man had suffered in the Brecon Beacons, Swanson wasn’t really surprised by that. “I thought they were still in jail, waiting for their process – or has one of them orchestrated a jailbreak in the meantime?”

“I don’t know,” Swanson admitted. “I’m about to contact Inspector Henderson; he ought to know all the details.”

“I’d appreciate if you could share the results,” Jones said, still with a somewhat tense voice. “As you can imagine, I have a… personal interest in the matter.”

“I will, as soon as I’ve learned anything,” Swanson promised. “I’ll come to your base when the crime scene has been cleared to co-ordinate things anyway.”

“I’m out of town at the moment,” Jones told him, “but will return as soon as I can. Are you ready to deal with Jack on your own?”

Swanson grinned. “Oh, please, as if it would be the first time!”

“Good,” Jones said, with a definite smile in his voice. “I’ll meet you in the Hub, then; in the meantime I’ll send you a field team to collect the evidence.”

Swanson thanked him and disconnected. Then she turned to the SOCO people working at the crime scene.

“Well, people, if you’re done here, you can vacate the scene. Torchwood is taking over from here.”

“What’s new?” Tim Cochrane, the leader of the SOCO team, muttered darkly.

M’Benga patted the scruffy little man on the back. “C’mon, Tim, you know that means practically Lloyd; your evidence will be in good hands. Since she transferred from you lot to Torchwood, the Woodies have _almost_ become professional.”

“Besides,” PC Shaun Bridges, who’d been summoned to secure the crime scene, added with a grin, “we’ll be treated to a dramatic entrance of Captain Harkness himself, which is always better than daytime television.”

“There’s that,” M’Benga agreed. “That man should work in musical theatre, not for the spooky-doos. He can power-walk with the best of ‘em.”

And police and SOCO team had a good chuckle at the costs of Captain Jack Harkness, despite the gruesome sight before them.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Right on time, the Torchwood SUV pulled up with screeching tires and stopped at arm’s length from them. The doors opened simultaneously and out came four people: Captain Jack Harkness, with his long coat swirling dramatically around him; Andy Davidson, who’d apparently driven the car; a bald, bespectacled young bloke with some complicated piece of tech in his hand, and finally Lloyd. Her exit was the least dramatic of all, and as soon as she’d left the SUV, she started to pull on the usual paper coverall that she still used, even after having left SOCO for Torchwood, when investigating a crime scene.

She was almost done with getting prepared when a fifth person clambered out of the Torchwood-mobile: the scrawny Torchwood doctor they hadn’t seen for quite some time. Swanson was surprised to see him; as far as she knew, Doctor Harper hadn’t been cleared for field duty yet.

“There was no-one else available,” Captain Harkness told her as if he’d read her thoughts. “Well, Detective Swanson, here we are. Ianto said you guys might need us. This must be my lucky day indeed.”

Swanson rolled her eyes but said nothing. Jack Harkness was like a force of nature – trying to change his course would have been hopeless.

“Stove it, Harkness!” Doctor Harper growled. “Teaboy said they’ve got a corpse for us – so where _is_ it?”

“ _Half_ a corpse,” M’Benga, who wasn’t above morbid jokes either, corrected. “Someone – or _something_ – ate the other half of it. It’s pretty gross… like in a slaughterhouse.”

“Been there, seen that, still have the nightmares,” Doctor Harper muttered, following him to the bench. After the first look at the victim’s remains, though, he, too became slightly green around the gills. “Oi! That _is_ gross!”

“Told ya so,” M’Benga countered. “I thought you Woodies see such things on a daily basis.”

“Almost,” Doctor Harper replied distractedly, waving Lloyd with her tools closer. “Hey, Lloyd, what do you think about the shape of this wound?”

Lloyd took a closer look at the victim… or what was still there of him.

“The angle of slash seems to be the same like the one that killed the Weevil,” she said. “The edges are ragged, too, as if torn by claws or fangs… claws are more likely. I’ll collect DNA samples right away. If we find a match, then we’ll know that it was the same killer.”

Captain Harkness looked at the bald bloke. “Any energy residues, Trevor?”

Their geek-on-duty took some readings and studied the display of his instrument with a frown that almost dislocated his glasses.

“A faint echo of Rift energy,” he finally said with an educated London accent. “Could that mean that the murderer’s come through the Rift?”

“Or was near to the recent big Rift spike; unfortunately, that doesn’t prove anything,” Captain Harkness replied thoughtfully. “We’ll have to wait for the DNA analysis to be sure.”

“But in the meantime the murderer can strike again,” M’Benga warned.

Captain Harkness nodded, uncharacteristically serious for once. Swanson had seen him like that before, but not often. Only if the situation was _really_ critical.

“Afraid so; it’s taken two victims in a single day, so it’s probably very aggressive… or very hungry,” he said. “And it seems to have found a liking to human flesh.”

“Couldn’t it be those cannibals again?” M’Benga asked, not quite willing to give up his theory just yet.

Captain Harkness shook his head. “No; although it seems an obvious solution. But I had Sally check on them; they’re all peacefully sitting in jail, like good little monsters. Not a single one of them is missing.”

“Well, that was that, then,” Swanson muttered. “Would’ve been too easy anyway.”

“Believe me, Kathy,” Harkness replied grimly, “there was _nothing_ easy in the Brecon Beacons. We could have all died.”

“I know,” Swanson said apologetically. “But for _us_ , it would have been easier. _Human_ monsters we can deal with.”

“Strange,” Harkness said, and his bright blue eyes darkened with some remembered horror the depths of which she couldn’t even begin to guess. “In my experience, human monsters are the worst kind one could imagine.”

For a moment, he seemed terribly old, like the mountains themselves. Like withered stone. Then he shook himself like a wet dog and put on the trademark, billion-watt Jack Harkness grin again.

“Well, Owen, PC Andy, what about putting our unfortunate friend into a body bag and getting him back to the Hub? I’m sure Tom won’t mind coming back for the graveyard shift to do the autopsy.”

“Yeah, sure, especially if he hasn’t even managed to unpack his suitcases yet,” the geek named Trevor commented.

Harkness shrugged. “That’s Torchwood for you. The sooner he gets used to it, the better for him… if he really wants to work for us,” he glanced at Swanson. “You coming, Kathy?”

“With you? Sitting where exactly?” Swanson asked scathingly. “The five of you must have been sitting on each other’s lap as it is, to fit into that car. No, thanks. I’ll pay Jones a visit later on. When I’ve talked to Inspector Henderson and filed my report.”

Which meant that Neesha would be put to bed by Eiry – or the babysitter – again. But that couldn’t be helped.

“You don’t know what you’ll miss!” Harkness leered at him.

“I’ll try to live with the disappointment,” she replied; then, turning to M’Benga, she continued. “Geoff, let’s wrap things up here. I’ll go to Henderson, first, then see you back at the station.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Night had fallen over Cardiff, and Gwen Cooper was sitting at the bar of her once favourite club, _Legend_ , nursing a drink and glaring darkly at a group of three young women in red shirts and pink, fuzzy cowboy hats. Said young women were holding their drinks and moving to the music pulsing through the crowded club – which happened to be “Filthy Gorgeous” by Scissor Sisters. Somewhat fitting the girls, Gwen found. 

She wondered what the hell they were celebrating.

One of them a tall blonde, glanced at her watch with the exaggerated frown of drunk people when they’re trying to look serious.

“Hey, it's the service she's s’posed to be late for, not her hen do,” she complained. “Where is she?” 

Right on clue, a fourth girl walked into the club across the room. She, too, was wearing a red shirt and a pink fuzzy cowboy hat and munching on a bag of chips.

“Here she is!” another one of the girls, a brunette, pointed at her, and all three of them started to sing loudly. “Here comes the bride, looking for a ride; here comes the bride, and she'll take it up the aisle!”

A hen night, then. With the bride being obviously late.

“Oi, we thought you'd bottled it,” the blonde girl told her. 

She shook her head. “Nah, my mother was naggin’ ‘bout some minor detail again. You know what she can be like.”

Her friends nodded in deep understanding. The bride looked around with a tad of disappointment.

“Is there anything to eat tonight, or is it just booze all the way?” she asked. “I’m famished!” 

“Just liquid food,” the brunette told her.

“Booze, blokes, bopping and booze!” the brunette summarized, and they all laughed. Then the blonde signalled to someone behind the bride’s back, with a decidedly smug expression, and a hunky male stripper, dressed as a police officer steps up to her and tosses his hat aside.

“That’s right, missy,” he announced, while the bride stared at him, wide-eyed and more than a little interested. “You’re under arrest!”

As her girlfriends laughed and she grinned with glee, the stripper ripped his shirt and pants off, revealing an oversized red dildo peering out of his hot pink Speedos.

Gwen watched the scene with mixed feelings… out of which jealousy was the strongest part. This was _exactly_ the kind of hen night her friends, Tinia and Carrie, would have organized for her. Had she not made the stupid mistake of breaking up with Rhys. What was she _thinking_? 

And now Rhys was getting married to some blonde bimbo half his age! Oh, she was _so_ going to be there for _that_! Stupid old fart at _Peletier’s_ wouldn’t tell her anything, but she hadn’t been a policewoman once for nothing. She’d just driven over to Cardiff to investigate a little on her own.

Running into Mike and Beth Halloran had been pure luck. They hadn’t been very forthcoming at first, but Gwen knew how to deal with them. Mike’d always been a blabbermouth, and it had only taken a few well-placed questions to find out that they had been invited to the wedding indeed, and where and when said event would take place. 

So Gwen still had two days to figure out how to make said event truly unforgettable for Rhys and his new bride.

And once she was done with Rhys, she’d plan something unforgettable for Mr. Harwood Jr, too. _No-one_ discarded Gwen Cooper like a used tool! No-one that lived to tell the tale anyway.

“Hey, what’s with the frown?” a light baritone asked behind her “This is a celebration, ain’t it?”

“Not mine,” she scoffed, without turning back.

“No?” the stranger asked, clearly amused. “What’s a hot chick like you doing in such a mediocre place, then?”

At _that_ , she finally turned around to see the man with the cheesy pick-up line – and for a moment, she completely forgot to breathe. Behind her stood the most gorgeous hunk she’d seen for a long time. Perhaps the most gorgeous hunk she’d _ever_ seen.

He was tall, more than a head taller than she, and almost ridiculously good-looking, in a Tom Cruise-wannabe way. Brown hair, parted and styled in a spiky fashion, bright, almost electric blue eyes and a thousand megawatt smile with more teeth than any man ought to possess – why did that face seem so familiar to her? She was positive that they hadn’t met before.

He was wearing an old-fashioned, long grey coat, made of heavy wool… period military clothing? Who in their right minds was wearing period military clothing in the twenty-first century? Well, at least he had the height and the breadth to fill it properly.

“Who are you?” she asked, absolutely stunned. The bloke was like all her wet dreams come true.

He blinded her with another wide, white smile that displayed the sexiest dimples she’d ever seen.

“Someone who knows how to give a girl a good time,” he said with a suggestive leer. “Interested?”

 _Interested_? Oh, she was _way_ more than just interested! He made her so hot and bothered that she’d let him take her in the middle of the crowded club, regardless of the audience. She nodded eagerly.

“Come with me, then,” he grabbed her arm, not too gently, but she was too far gone already to protest, and dragged her out of the back door, into the narrow, dark little lane behind the club. There he slammed her against the wall and ripped her shirt open.

 _That_ woke her from her hormone-induced haze.

“Hey, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” she yelled, taking a swing at him.

He grabbed her wrist with an iron fist; his nails sank deeply into her flesh, like the claws of a wild animal.

“Laying the seed for the future,” he growled; his eyes, strangely enough, seemed red in the dim light of a nearby street lantern. Then he opened his mouth – a mouth that, suddenly, was filled with blackened, razor-sharp fangs – and bit down on her forearm, fast and hard like a mastiff.

Gwen passed out from the shock and the pain of it.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
PC Yorick Gorman left the _Legend_ – where he’d been summoned to prevent an upcoming cat fight – through the back door. Goodness, but these hen nights always ended in a disaster! Drunken women could be so much nastier than drunken men. For his part, he preferred a good, honest bar brawl to those bitch-feasts; but then, he was an old-fashioned copper who still thought that women shouldn’t drink publicly.

Well, at least it was over now, and he could finally smoke a fag in peace. He fished a cigarette out of the paper package, pocketed the rest again, then he patted down all available pockets for his zippo. Where did the bloody thing go every time?

Ah! There it was! PC Gorman lit his cigarette and was just about to snap the zippo closed again, when he saw it. _Her_. A dark-haired woman, with a torn shirt and an ugly, bleeding wound on her forearm.

Cigarette forgotten, he grabbed his mobile phone to call the paramedics… and reinforcements. There must have been a serious crime happening.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
“The injury looks like a bite wound,” the middle-aged, experienced paramedic examined it in the light of the torch his colleague was holding. “But if it was a dog, it must have had the biggest teeth I’ve ever seen. I mean, the fangs that caused this wound were _huge_! I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

“Neither have I,” PC Gorman muttered, “and I’ve been walking the beat for the last eighteen years. So, what the hell _could_ have bitten her?”

“What kind of animal it was, it must have been large… and feral,” the paramedic said. “Perhaps something that’s escaped from a zoo?”

“Don’t know of any such reports, but I guess I can ask,” PC Gorman mused. “But why was her shirt ripped apart? Would an animal do that?”

The paramedic shook his head. “Not bloody likely. Besides, her torso is not injured in any way; there aren’t any scratches, not a drop of blood on her skin. _This_ is the work of a man, I’d say.”

“Two separate attacks, then, huh?” PC Gorman scratched his ear; that was always helpful when he had to think about a hard question. “A man, who was trying to molest her but was scared away by some sort of wild animal?”

The paramedic shrugged. “She might not have been molested at all. Perhaps she came out with a casual partner for a quickie, and they were attacked before they could have started.”

“Perhaps the man’s still lying somewhere nearby, wounded and unconscious – or dead,” PC Gorman guessed.

“That’s your problem; yours and that of your colleagues,” the paramedic replied. “Ours is to take her to A & R and have her injuries dressed before she’d become septic. This isn’t exactly a clean environment.”

He looked pointedly at the overflowing garbage bins on the other end of the lane.

“Where are you taking her?” the constable asked.

“ _Saint Helen’s_ ,” the paramedic told him. “They’re on emergency duty tonight.”

“Someone from the police station will drop in to speak with her later on, I reckon,” PC Gorman said. “ _And_ with you. I’ll need your name for my report.”

“Derek Lea,” the paramedic said. “I’m on emergency call until six am, but after that, I’m all theirs. Good hunt!”

He and his colleague lifted the injured woman onto a gurney and pushed the gurney into the emergency van. Then they drove off with a speed that was slightly above the speed limit.

“Well, well, well,” PC Gorman murmured to himself. “That was certainly something different tonight. Let’s see what the desk sergeant thinks about it.”

He walked back to his police car to make a report while waiting for SOCO and for the detectives to arrive. He didn’t see the two pairs of glowing red eyes watching him from the shadows, behind the garbage bins.

Not that spotting them in time would have saved him.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
By the time the field team returned to the Hub, Ianto had already come back from Newport, and Andy and Tom were just descending via invisible lift. Tosh and Sally were running a search through the alien database, to find carnivorous species with a preference for human flesh (especially for inner organs), and Rhys, having returned from his commission run, was asking if anyone wanted pizza. There were several takers, as Ianto was the only one who’d actually had dinner.

“Do you want me to call Doctor Connolly?” Ianto asked Tom. “This won’t be your regular, run-of-the-mill autopsy, and I happen to know that she’s not on duty tonight.”

“Then let her rest,” Tom replied. “This victim is just a human… _was_ just a human, I mean,” he corrected himself. “If Harper assists me, I can do this.”

“Hey!” Jack shook a warning finger at him. “You’re part of the team now, so adapt! We’re all on first name basis here.”

“Save for Lloyd,” Andy grinned. “But she’s ex-SOCO, and those folks don’t even _have_ fist names.”

“Oh, we do have them all right,” Lloyd countered, peeling off the paper coverall and exchanging it for a white lab coat, “but lowly ex-constables don’t get to use ‘em.”

If Tom was shocked hearing them bantering and making silly jokes at each other’s cost while a brutally massacred man was lying on the autopsy table, he showed no sign of it. Perhaps he was no stranger to such self-defence mechanisms.

“Well, then,” Jack said. “Tom, Owen, you should put that guy on ice for the time being; pizza’s arriving in ten, and that’s not a nice view when we’re eating.”

“He does have a point,” Ianto agreed. “Tosh, how’s the search going?”

“So far, we’ve got six possible candidates,” Tosh reported, “and we’ve only searched twenty per cent of the database yet.”

“I see,” Ianto thought for a moment. “Well, there’s no need for all of us to stay in the Hub all night. Tosh, you should go home and have some rest; you’ve been in since six o’clock in the morning. Rhys, you too. I’m sure you and Emma still have things to discuss. Mickey…”

“I’ll go as soon as I’ve fed the Weevils,” Mickey finished for him.

“And I’ll do the same after I’ve run an analysis on the readings taken at the crime scene,” Trevor added. “But Jonesy, you should go home, too. You’re dead on your feet.”

“I am,” Ianto confessed. “But I might be needed. No-one knows the Archives as well as I do.”

“Ianto,” Jack said gently, “Trevor’s right. This is an automated search. Sally can run it without you just fine, and I’ll be here anyway. Don’t you think me capable of picking out possible candidates from all those murderous aliens?”

“I know you can,” Ianto replied, “I just…”

“You’re overstressed and half-asleep, and your time off has just been cut short,” Jack interrupted. “Go home!”

Ianto gave him a slight smile. Jack was actually quite cute in mother hen mode. “I hate to remind you, Captain, but _I get to say_ who goes home and who stays here,” he said.

Owen gave him a baleful look. “Not if you’re unfit for duty due to sheer exhaustion,” he said. “Fuck off, Teaboy, and catch some shut-eye before I suspend you for medical reasons.”

“Excuse me, but don’t we have a new medic here?” Ianto asked in mock annoyance.

That earned him another withering look from the acerbic doctor. “You’ve got a new _medic_ , yeah. But I’m still the ranking medical officer of this lovely place, so I can still put you on sick leave if I think you need it.”

Ianto smiled tiredly. “I can’t go home now. Detective Swanson wants to meet me later. But I’m willing to have a nap in one of the break rooms. Is that acceptable, Doctor Harper?”

Owen nodded curtly. “Better than nothing, although…”

He was cut short when Ianto’s phone rang. Ianto picked it up, listened with a darkening face to the caller; then thanked them and disconnected.

“My nap must wait, I’m afraid. Someone else’s been attacked.”

“Another corpse?” Owen asked with a frown. “Boy, but our alien has an appetite today!”

“No, not a corpse,” Ianto replied. “Apparently, the victim survived the attack.”

“How can anyone survive _that_?” Tom gestured towards the autopsy bay. Ianto shook his head.

“They can’t. This particular victim, however, was bitten but nothing worse. Someone must have heard her cries or whatever. In any case, the attacker let go of her and ran away. The police think she might have been attacked by a man, but as she’s still unconscious, they cannot confirm it.”

“By a man?” Jack asked in surprise. “Can we be dealing with a different attacker?”

Ianto shrugged tiredly. “I don’t know. That’s why I have to go to _Saint Helen’s_ and speak with the paramedic who’d brought her in. And someone needs to take a look at her wound.”

“A&E would have disinfected it by now, so it’s unlikely that we’d find any conclusive DNA samples,” Lloyd said.

“I know,” Ianto answered. “Still, we must give it a try. This situation is getting out of control rapidly; we must try to stop it as long as we can. Lloyd, come with me. Tom, Owen, start with the autopsy. Jack, if you don’t mind helping Sally with the search, I’d be grateful. And I need someone to drive; I don’t trust my reflexes right now.”

“I’ll go,” Andy offered. “The police will be more forthcoming with me than with Mickey.”

“And I’ll cancel the pizza order,” Rhys said with a sigh.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Detective Alwyn Flores called simply Von by all his colleagues, arrived with his partner, Moira Fenner, and the SOCO-team in the small lane behind the club _Legend_ exactly nineteen minutes after PC Gorman had called in for reinforcements. He was a small yet well-built, olive-skinned man with exotic features, whose grandparents had come from the Philippines. He was born in Cardiff, though, and considered himself Welsh to the bone. Just like Fenner, the rookie detective of the police station, the daughter of a Welsh father and a half-Ghanaian mother. She’d been assigned to Flores to learn the basics of detective work, and the two could work together really well.

Flores had tried to contact the constable four times during the drive, but to no end. Which was strange, as Gorman counted as a very reliable policeman who wouldn’t leave a crime scene unwatched.

“His car stands right there,” Moira said. “But he ain’t sitting in it. Where could he be?”

“Securing the crime scene, most likely,” Flores replied. “That’s what every good cop would do. And Gorman _is_ a good cop.”

“But if he’s securing the crime scene, why can’t we see him anywhere?” Moira frowned.

Flores shrugged, stopped the car and got out of it to greet the SOCO-team.

“Oi, Cochrane, you still aboard?” he asked the scruffy little crime scene investigator. “I thought you had the morning shift.”

“I _had_ ,” Cochrane rubbed his eyes tiredly. “But Eads has gone down sick, and we’ve been short a man anyway since Lloyd transferred to Torchwood. Besides, I can use the paid overtime. All right; what do we have?”

“Assault and molestation, most likely,” Flores said. “The victim survived but ain’t responsible yet. So we’ll need whatever you can give us, in order to kick-start the investigation.”

“Sure,” Cochrane yawned, then ordered his team to gear up and start the standard search pattern. They could do that in sleep.

“I’ll see if the constable got anything useful in his car,” he added.

A moment later he came back, his face unnaturally white and his eyes haunted.

“Detective,” he said in a strangely high-pitched voice that was just a step short of hysterics, “I think you better call Torchwood. We’ve got something a lot more serious here than just assault and molestation – and they’re the right people to deal with it.”


	7. Chapter 7

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
**CHAPTER 07**

When they finally reached _St. Helen’s_ , Ianto was fit to be tied. Jack’s driving style always grated on his nerves, and even more so when said nerves were already frayed. But Andy had to run out with Mickey to catch a stray Weevil (at least they _hoped_ it was just a Weevil) in the last moment, and Lloyd just didn’t like driving the SUV. She kept saying that the steering wheel reacted sluggishly.

“I don’t have the upper body strength to wrestle down this monster,” she declared repeatedly.

To their surprise, they ran directly into Doctor Connolly when entering the hospital through A & E.

“Angela, what are you doing here?” Lloyd asked. She and Connolly were old friends; Angela was perhaps the only person she called by her first name. "I thought you had the evening off."

“I did,” the resolute doctor pulled on a white lab kit, “but then the night turned out a bit too busy for a greenhorn like Rupesh here to deal with on his own. So I got drafted, as usual.”

She nodded in the direction of a young, obviously Indian doctor, who was bandaging the arm of an elderly man.

“Who’s he?” Ianto couldn’t remember having seen the man before, and he knew most of the personnel in _St. Helen’s_.

“Our new junior doctor,” Doctor Connolly explained. “He’s not so bad, actually, but so nervous all the time he makes me itch. I hope he’ll get used to the stress eventually, or he won’t last long at A & E. But you wanted to see the assault victim, right?”

“If it’s allowed, yes,” Ianto said. “How’s she? Has she regained consciousness?”

“Not yet,” the doctor replied. “Detective Swanson’s in there, waiting for her to wake up.”

“Then we’ll join her,” Ianto decided. Doctor Connolly shrugged.

“Be my guest. But you should prepare yourselves for a surprise.”

More she wouldn’t tell them and was called away to an emergency in the next moment. Ianto exchanged a confused look with Jack; they both shrugged.

“Well, we’ve been warned,” Jack finally said. “Let’s take a look at that surprise.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Tom and Owen finished the autopsy on the human victim – whose name, according to the ID card found in his wallet, was apparently Rhodri Fychan and who had worked for the City Hall as a low-ranking administrator. Sally ran a quick background check on him and came up with absolutely nothing.

“No immediate family, only a few cousins in North Wales,” she reported. “He lived alone, apparently. No file at the police, save from a complaint of his neighbour that his dog howls every other night.”

“Dog?” Owen asked with a frown. “We’ve seen no stinkin’ dog in Bute Park.”

“But it might explain what he was doing there, seemingly alone,” Tosh said. “He was probably walking his dog – and it ran away.”

“Or it got eaten by the alien,” Owen commented with a mild case of evil satisfaction. He _hated_ dogs.

“In which case we’ll find the remains and _those_ may prove helpful for our research,” Tosh countered. “We’ll have to go back and search for the dog… or its corpse.”

“But what if the dog’s gotten away?” Tom looked up from the autopsy bay where he was washing the blood and other questionable substances from his hands.

“In that case it’s even more important to find it,” Tosh replied. “If the dog was present at the attack, it might be able to lead us to the attacker.”

“That poor thing would be out of its mind with terror,” Tom, who _loved_ dogs, said. “We won’t find it during the night.”

“No,” Tosh agreed. “But we’ll look for it, first thing in the morning.” She yawned, covering her mouth with a hand discretely. “Well, I’m gone. Ianto will have my hide if he finds me still here when he comes back.”

“Teaboy’s got no right to speak,” Owen muttered. “He’s not better than you. The only one even worse sleep-wise is Jack.”

“Yeah, but he’s our boss, which gives him the right to dress me down for disregarding his orders,” Tosh pointed out. “Besides, I’m really drained. Sleep sounds like an excellent idea right now.”

“Tell me about it,” Tom agreed with a yawn that nearly dislocated his jaw.

At that moment the phone rang. Sally picked up the receiver.

“Torchwood,” she said crisply. Then she listened to the caller with an increasingly shocked face. “Understood, Detective,” she finally said. “We’re on our way.”

She disconnected and looked at the others with haunted eyes.

“You can stop packing, guys. We’ve got another one.”

“Human?” Owen asked, being the first to recover from the shock.

Sally nodded. “The constable who found the assault victim.”

“Which only proves my theory that every good deed receives its proper punishment,” Owen grabbed a medkit. “Well, what are you waiting for?”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Standing in the sick room the Torchwood team stared speechlessly at the still unconscious assault victim in the bed. It was a woman of about thirty, so pale that her freckles seemed to glow in her pastry face, with deep shadows under her eyes; and she had a thick bandage on her right arm.

As unflappably as Ianto used to be, this time was Jack the first one to recover from the promised _surprise_.

“Well,” he said languidly, “ _this_ is certainly not the kind of reunion with Gwen Cooper I’ve imagined. What he hell is she doing in Cardiff? I thought she was safely tucked away with her parents in Swansea.”

“Swansea isn’t another planet, and she does have a car,” Ianto reminded him. “Plus, if memory serves me well, she liked to go to the _Legend_. She often met there some lady friends she used to know from before the police while she was still living in town.”

“A strange coincidence in any case,” Jack said doubtfully. “I’d like to know how she is doing. Can’t we find a duty doctor somewhere around here?”

“That’s not necessary,” Lloyd took the case sheet off the end of the sickbed and studied it for a moment. “The case is described here well enough. There was no sexual assault, apparently. She got bitten by some sort of wild animal, based on the size and the nature of the wounds – we’ll have to check on _that_ , though, considering the recent events. Her blood work came back relatively clear. Yes, she does have some alcohol in her blood, but not enough to make her drunk.”

“So, everything’s normal, except that she won’t wake up?” Jack asked, genuinely flabbergasted.

Lloyd shook her head. “Not _everything_. There’s some unknown substance in her blood they couldn’t recognize. They’ve sent it to the lab for analysis.”

“Perhaps we should make our own analysis,” Ianto suggested.

Lloyd nodded. “That’s a good idea, but I’m not qualified to take blood samples. We’ll have to get Tom here – or find a nurse.”

“No need for that,” Doctor Connolly stepped into the room and handed her a small cooling box, the kind in which the hospital transported blood or tissue samples. “I’ve secured a sample for you; thought you’d want to see with your own eyes what she might have in her. Besides, your equipment is several magnitudes better than ours.”

Lloyd grinned at her. “Thanks, Angela. You’re the best.”

“I know,” Doctor Connolly replied, clearly content with herself. “And don’t you forget it, girl!” She stepped closer to Gwen’s bed and checked her vitals. “She seems to be all right. She ought to wake up any time now; her system ought to have dealt with the shock. Right on time for Detective Flores to ask his questions.”

“I’d prefer to question her first,” Jack said.

“I don’t think that would be such a good idea, Jack,” Ianto warned. “Let the police do their thing; Lloyd can stay here with them. Or do you want to trigger her memories?”

“What memories?” Detective Flores asked suspiciously and walked into the sick room. Unlike Swanson, he never softened towards Jack – _or_ towards Torchwood in general – during the recent months, no matter how much the working relationship between Torchwood and the local police had improved since Ianto had taken over.

As if answering his question, Gwen suddenly bolted upright in the bed. She stared at Jack with shocked recognition, her eyes widening so much that one really had to fear they would pop out of her head.

“It’s him!” she screamed, pointing an accusing finger at Jack. “He was the one who attacked me!”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
“Nonsense,” Ianto said calmly. “Captain Harkness had no reason to attack Miss Cooper. The two of them always had a… cordial relationship while she was working for us. In fact, Captain Harkness was the only person at Torchwood who actually _liked_ her. Any one of us, older team members, would have ample motivation – she hadn’t made herself exactly popular – _except_ Captain Harkness. He was very… supportive to Miss Cooper, and Miss Cooper adored him.”

“Besides,” Lloyd added with professional practicality, “Captain Harkness was in the company of several witnesses all day.”

“Sure; _Torchwood_ witnesses,” Flores commented acerbically.

They were all sitting in the office of Detective Inspector Henderson – a distinguished gentleman who, according to Jack’s earlier observation, had the biggest hands he’d ever seen on a man – with Flores trying to frame Jack for the assault on Gwen and everyone else trying to explain him why that was neither likely nor possible.

“That’s not entirely true,” Kathy Swanson, also present at the meeting, interjected. “He was with us at the first crime scene in Bute Park. M’Benga, Cochrane and the entire SOCO team can vouch for that.”

“And afterwards he returned to base with us and never left it for a moment,” Lloyd added.

“As I said: _Torchwood_ witnesses,” Flores muttered darkly.

“Careful, Detective,” Ianto warned him with a sudden edge in his voice. “You may not like us or our methods, but Torchwood has served Queen and country since the nineteenth century. We don’t like our integrity being questioned.”

“Really?” Flores said with a derisive snort. “I’m quaking in my boots.”

“You should,” Lloyd replied seriously. “Director Jones is not the person you’d want as an enemy.”

“Oh, please!” Flores rolled his eyes. “What could he _possibly_ do to harm me? Hit me with a manila folder?”

Ianto contemplated aforementioned manila folder – containing the preliminary analysis of Gwen’s blood – with a bland smile that made Lloyd shiver… and not in a good way.

“You _really_ don’t want to know, Detective,” he said in a voice that was _almost_ friendly. Together with that bland, _I-am-talking-to-an-idiot_ receptionist smile, it was the creepiest thing she’d ever seen, Swanson decided. And considering that she has been interacting with Torchwood on a regular basis for the last six months or so, _that_ was saying a lot.

“Flores, shut up before you really get yourself in deep shit!” she warned. “You’ve never been to the base of the Woodies; never seen what they face on a _good_ day. _I have_. And if no-one else, I trust Lloyd unconditionally. I’ve worked with her since I first came to the police. If _she_ says Harkness has always been in clear sight, he _has_ been in clear sight. Case closed.”

“Besides,” Inspector Henderson added mildly, “even if Captain Harkness _had_ assaulted Miss Cooper, we couldn’t do a thing about it. Torchwood is… how do you like to put it, Captain? Oh yes; _outside the government, beyond the police_. They only answer to the Crown.”

“So he’ll just get away with it?” Flores demanded angrily.

“He isn’t getting away with _anything_ ,” Swanson said with emphasis. “He _didn’t_ do it.”

“That’s not what the victim says,” Flores answered doggedly.

“The _victim_?” Swanson echoed. “So she’s the _victim_ now, all of a sudden? Not so long ago you used to call her other names; not particularly friendly ones. I seem to remember that _Gwenzilla_ was the nicest of them – after your brief… _episode_ in the broom closet, which you happened to regret in the morning after, as soon as you’d gotten over the mother of all hangovers.”

“ _What_?” Lloyd chortled. “ _You_ , too? When did _that_ happen?”

“To his defence, he was quite drunk on that evening,” Swanson explained. “It was right after Cooper had been assigned to the police station. We were celebrating Von’s promotion. It was a fairly… intoxicating evening, where the amount of alcohol that had been consumed is concerned.”

“Then he shouldn’t compensate his guilty feelings by trying to frame an innocent man for something he didn’t do,” Ianto commented icily and rose. “Inspector Henderson, this meeting is closed. Torchwood takes over both murder cases, as they’re obviously related to the dead alien found in the parking lot. I’ll inform Detective Swanson about our results; aside from her, we won’t tolerate any interference from the police. Good night.”

He turned around and left, without waiting for an answer, with Lloyd and Jack in tow.

Swanson gave Flores a baleful glare. “Congratulations, Flores, you’ve just made my life a great deal more complicated. What the hell do you have against Captain Harkness? As far as I know he never harmed you in any way.”

“He’s an arrogant sod who walks across town as if he owned it,” Flores replied mulishly. Swanson shrugged.

“Yes, he is. So what? He isn’t the boss any longer; _Jones_ is. And if you could just shut up, I’d get from Jones whatever we want. I can deal with him – usually. Unless an idiot like you pisses him off.”

“What does he think he is?” Flores muttered. “A little upstart. A paper pusher.”

“That _paper pusher_ , as you call him, has survived the worst terrorist attack this country has faced in the last decade,” Swanson said grimly. “Then he turned around and continued working for the same organization here. He got nearly eaten by those insane cannibals in the Brecon Beacons, and it didn’t frighten him away. Do you really think _you_ can intimidate him, Flores? Then think again.”

“It’s a moot point anyway,” Inspector Henderson said. “Torchwood has claimed the case – we’re out. But Detective,” he looked at Swanson, “I want the guy who murdered our constable. Work with Torchwood if you have to; I’ll temporarily assign you to them if that helps. But I want _answers_.”

“I shall do my best to get them for you, sir,” Swanson replied.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
It was greying in the east already when Jack, Ianto and Lloyd finally returned to the Hub. Tosh was already back, still searching the alien database, while Sally and Trevor, who’d had the graveyard shift as usual, were just about to leave. Tom, having finished his third autopsy in a row, was snoring in one of the break rooms, while Owen, used to Torchwood-issue all-nighters, had commandeered Lloyd’s lab to run the analysis on the latest samples.

“Here’s more,” Lloyd handed him Connolly’s cooling box. “Unknown substance in Cooper’s blood. Just put it into the analysator and I’ll finish it for you.”

“Is it true then?” Tosh asked in surprise. “Is Gwen really the assault victim?”

She’d already spoken to Swanson’s PA but still couldn’t quite believe it. Lloyd nodded.

“Yep. And she seems to believe that Captain Harkness was the one who’d attacked her.”

“Which Detective Flores was only too eager to believe,” Jack added bitterly. 

He was deeply hurt by the assumption that she would sexually assault _anyone_ , especially a member of his own team. An ex-member of his former team. Whatever.

“Flores is a dick,” Andy said with a shrug. “A good cop, but a complete dick. I don’t understand why _Gwen_ would say something like that, though.”

“Cos she’s mentally unhinged, perhaps?” Trevor replied. “It makes no sense!”

“It does, if the alien who attacked her is telepathic and can create a convincing illusion,” Tosh countered.

“You mean it’s read Gwen’s mind and used mental projection to make her believe it was Jack?” Ianto clarified.

Tosh nodded. “Exactly.”

“But Gwen no longer remembers Jack, does he?” Mickey pointed out.

“Actually, she does,” Jack corrected. “Retcon works like wiping the hard drive of a PC; if you delete the files, an echo still remains, and sometimes they can be reconstructed; unless the disc has been completely reformatted.”

“So Gwen still has images of us in her subconscious,” Ianto added. “Images, echoes of feelings, even memories. She just can’t gain access to them anymore; but a strong enough telepath might.”

“That narrows down the search considerably,” Andy commented.

Ianto shook his head. “Not really. You’d be surprised to know how many telepathic species are out there.”

“Still, at least we can sort out the non-telepathic ones,” Tosh modified the search parameters. “That should help.”

“Yeah, that leaves only, oh, five thousand or so of them to consider,” Owen muttered darkly.

“Actually, seventy-five telepathic species that we know of,” Tosh corrected. “Which is still a bit much for my comfort. So, since it’s dawning already, we should go and look for Mr. Fychan’s dog.”

“What do you mean?” Ianto asked. Tosh explained him the idea, and he nodded. “That could work. Check both the crime scene _and_ the victim’s place, in case the dog returns.”

“I’ll go to the crime scene,” Andy offered.

“And I’ll check the man’s place,” Mickey said. “I’m good with dogs. What kind of dog is it anyway?”

Tosh pulled up Sally’s report about the victim’s background. “A three-year-old Irish Setter by the name of Molly.”

“Good,” Mickey checked the amount of coin in his pocket. “C’mon Andy, lets buy a few treats for the doggie and see if he can lead us to the killer.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Gwen woke up from a nightmare involving some sort of red-eyed monster with heavy talons and sharp, blackened teeth that tried to kill her. Or eat her. The dream hadn’t been exactly conclusive about the possible outcome.

She was drained in cold sweat and felt light-headed. Her wounded arm was throbbing – not exactly painfully, but it was an unpleasant feeling nonetheless. She had the taste of old rug in her mouth – not that she’d ever had the true experience, but this was what she imagined old rugs would taste like.

She reached out blindly, in the hope that she’d find a glass of water on the bedside table, but no such luck. Dammit! She’d have to go to the bathroom… assuming there was a bathroom somewhere close.

She swung her legs over the edge of the bed… and stayed sitting there for a while, fighting the unexpected dizziness. Why _was_ she feeling so dizzy? And why was her stomach rebelling against any vertical movement? Was her arm wound probably infected?

She lifted up her right arm to look at the bandage. There were splotches of blood already, seeping through the gauze. Oh God, the wound was bleeding again! She needed help! She needed a doctor, _now_!

She patted the bed around her, looking for the alarm button. When she finally found it, she pushed it frantically. Several times. After the fifth or sixth call, a harried-looking nurse came in running.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” she asked in a motherly manner. “Is your arm botherin’ you?”

“It’s throbbing,” Gwen complained. “And it’s bleeding through the bandage!”

“Lemme take a look,” the nurse switched on the lights. “Let’s hope you haven’t torn your stitches.”

She turned around to examine the bandage… then she just stood, rooted in the middle of the sick room, her mouth hanging open.

“Bloody hell, love!” she finally whispered in shock. “Have you already been pregnant when they brought you in last night?”

Following her glassy stare, Gwen looked down at her own protruding and very pregnant belly. Her jaw dropped, her eyes opened wide... and she passed out without a further word.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
“She is _what_?” Ianto asked incredulously, having picked up the phone call from _St. Helen’s_. “Was there any indication for _that_ in her blood work? I see. Yes, of course we’ll double check the blood sample you gave us, Doctor Connolly. Yes, we’d be grateful if you could keep her there for observation; we’ll try to send someone to keep an eye on her. Somebody she doesn’t know from earlier. Yes, of course someone with medical training. Thanks again for alarming us.”

He put down the receiver and stared at Jack in shock.

“What is it?” Jack asked, after having waited for him to tell something for a while in vain.

Ianto suddenly broke out in a near-hysterical laugher. Fifty-plus hours without proper sleep started to take their toll on him, too.

“Apparently, Gwen’s pregnant,” he told them when he could speak again.

“ _What_?” several of the others asked in unison.

“My reaction exactly,” Ianto said. “Doctor Connolly says there was no sign of a pregnancy when she was taken in last night. _Absolutely_ none. She didn’t show, and there was no increased hormone level in her blood.”

“It must have been the alien, then,” Jack said. The others gave him blank looks, and he shrugged. “Passed the eggs on in the bite. Some species do that. A kind of sneaky way of keeping the bloodline going. Boy, would Darwin have a field day if he'd made it to space.”

“Wait a minute,” Owen tried to clarify. “Are you telling me that Gwen’s pregnant with an _alien_ baby?”

“An alien _egg_ of some sort,” Jack corrected. “Unless you want to assume it was a case of immaculate conception, which would be rather unlikely in Gwen’s case.”

Owen gave the possibility some thought. “It _could_ be,” he finally decided. “But I’ll have to run some very specific scans to know it for sure.”

“I don’t think you going to the hospital would be such a good idea,” Ianto said. “She could recognize you as easily as Jack. Or me, for that matter. We need someone she hasn’t met before.”

“What about Milligan?” Owen suggested.

Ianto shook his head. “No; he has no experience with alien medical equipment; besides, he’s a good-looking man; we don’t want Gwen start stalking _him_ now. That could lead to complications.”

“Martha then,” Jack said promptly. “She knows her way around alien equipment, and she’s got some experience in xenobiology, too. We can smuggle her in as a med student in her last year. She’s used to dealing with alien threats.”

“Would she do it?” Ianto asked.

Jack nodded, with a wide grin that nearly split his face. “Oh, yeah! She _loves_ the excitement.”

“Good, Ianto said. “Call her and ask her to go directly to _St. Helen’s_. I’ll inform Doctor Connelly and send the necessary equipment over.”

“That’s gonna be fun,” Owen commented sourly. “Gwen and hormones… just what we needed.”

“ _Alien_ hormones,” Lloyd corrected, coming from her lab. “I’ve identified the unknown substance in her blood: it’s alien DNA. Alien _cells_ , to be more accurate. I’ve already found several markers that are identical with the samples from the dead Weevil and from the human victims.”

“Do we have the species?” Ianto asked.

“Not yet,” Tosh admitted unhappily. “I’ll add the new parameters to the search, like the way of procreation and the DNA markers; perhaps that speeds up the process.”

“Can her condition be life-threatening?” Jack asked. “I mean, she has an alien egg inside her… than can’t be healthy.”

Owen shook his head. “If there was any biological incompatibility she would be dead by now. I think she’s safe as long as the alien baby isn’t ready to be born.”

“Which means, we must remove the alien spawn _before_ that happens, or she’s a goner,” Jack concluded. “Do we have the right equipment for that?”

“Sure,” Owen shrugged. “We've got procedures for this situation, remember? You wrote them. I’ll run a bio-xenic microtron, a couple of days off her feet, and she'll be right as rain.”

“You mean _Martha_ will do it,” Jack corrected. “She can’t be allowed to see you, remember?”

Owen shrugged again. “Whatever.”

“I’ll call Martha,” Jack looked at Ianto, “but first…” he touched his earpiece. “Hey, PC Andy, Mickey Mouse, anything on the doggie front?”

“Nothing on my end,” Mickey’s voice answered; Tosh had put all comms on loudspeakers. “Neighbours say they haven’t seen either Mr. Fychan or Molly since yesterday. “I’m gonna help Andy now.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” Jack agreed. “If the dog hasn’t returned home, it would be haunting the crime scene; assuming it’s still alive.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Andy Davidson found the crime scene abandoned. The remains and clothes of the victim hand long been moved to the Hub, the police tape had been removed, all signs of the gruesome murder cleaned up. He was glad it had been Mickey who’d driven Jack and the others to the found. Despite everything he’d seen while with the Army, then with the police and now with Torchwood, the sight of a murdered man still managed to shake him to the bone.

“Be glad for it,” Ianto had said. “As long as it can still upset you, you haven’t lost your humanity completely.”

Andy often wondered what it meant for Jack, Ianto and the others who seemed so unperturbed by all the horrors they got to see, courtesy of the Rift. Sometimes he had the impression that only Rhys and he were still bothered by it. Well, Emma rarely got to see the ugly things, of course, as she stayed behind in the cover shop or the Archives, most of the time. There were days when Andy almost envied her. _Almost_. For despite the often horrible sights, he wouldn’t miss the excitement of field work for the world.

He looked at the now completely harmless bench where just a few chalk marks showed where the half-eaten man had been found. Rhodri Fychan, he reminded himself sternly, the poor wretch deserved to be remembered by name. Rhodri Fychan, a simple, lonely, middle-aged clerk from the City Hall. No family, Sally had said; probably not many friends either. Just a dog to give him a reason to leave the house in the first place.

Had he been specifically targeted by the aliens, Andy wondered. Or had he simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time, like that poor Yorick?

Andy hadn’t known PC Gorman too well while still with the police; but he knew the man’s reputation. Gorman had been a good cop; an honest and reliable cop. He didn’t deserve such a horrible fate. Nobody did. The guys at the police station had to be royally pissed. Cops never took it kindly when one of them got murdered, and while he wasn’t a cop any longer, Andy found he took Gorman’s death personally, too.

A quiet, whining noise interrupted his thoughts and something fuzzy rubbed against his leg. He glanced down and saw a somewhat dishevelled Irish Setter, its long, fiery coat wet and matted, looking up at him with round, hopeful brown eyes. There was a long gash on the left flank of the dog, encrusted in dried blood.

“Molly?” Andy asked, reaching down tentatively to pat the dog’s head. The dog waggled its tail and accepted the pat. It must have been shocked and frightened and quite hungry to be so friendly with a complete stranger, but again, Andy was used to dogs.

“Well, my girl,” he continued, scratching the dog’s head between the ears, “you and me have a killer to catch. You ready to help me?”

Molly narrowed her eyes in pleasure and waggled her tail again. Andy fished a treat from his pocket and offered it to her.

“I take that as a yes. Here, have a snack while we wait for Mickey to arrive.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My heartfelt thanks to espresso_addict and vilakins for the corrections and to weis07 for alternate lines that made the whole thing a lot better

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
**CHAPTER 08**

Gwen had been relocated to the maternity ward, much to her relief. She _hated_ being alone in a sick room, without anyone to talk to. Granted, the skinny, pointy-nosed – and _hugely_ pregnant – blonde girl wasn’t exactly her idea of a good companion, but it was still better than being alone.

“Hullo,” the girl clambered to her feet with some difficulty to shake hands with her. “I’m Millie Phillips.”

“Gwen Cooper,” Gwen eyed the other woman’s belly warily. It was even bigger than her own. “How far are you already?”

“About to give birth in four days,” Millie beamed at her. “What about you? You gotta be quite close, too.”

“I dunno,” Gwen muttered. “I’ve just started showing. Didn’t even know I _was_ preggers.”

Millie stared at her with wide, unbelieving eyes. “No way!” she shook her head energetically. “Not with _that_ bulge! You oughtta be in your thirty-second week, at the very least. How could you _not_ have noticed before?”

She was starting to get on Gwen’s nerves. “I haven’t got a clue, all right?” she snapped. “This wasn’t _supposed_ to happen! I’ve been on birth control for the last seven months. What good is birth control if it only suppresses the symptoms, instead of preventing one from getting knocked up? Dammit!”

“I’ve never heard of anything like this before,” Millie still couldn’t quite believe it, “and I _have_ seen a lot of weird shit in the last six months in here. It’s an endangered pregnancy,” she added, seeing Gwen’s frown. “I’ve already lost two babies, so they kept me here for most of the time. I really hope I can carry this one to term.”

She fell silent, with a dreamy smile on her thin face. Then she turned back to Gwen. “Your first?”

Gwen nodded. “Yeah; and not planned, either.”

“I’d say not, seeing how shocked you are and all that,” Millie grinned. “Does your hubby know about his good fortune yet?”

“I’m not married,” Gwen replied automatically; then she counted in her head and paled. The last time she’d done it without extra protection was more than seven months ago… with _Rhys_! “Oh my God… it must be from my ex!”

“That a bad thing?” Millie asked. “Which one of you's ended it?”

“I did,” Gwen admitted. “I thought I had a better offer, so I broke up with him; biggest mistake I ever made. But this… this…”

“This is your chance to reverse things,” Millie suggested. “Now that you’re carrying his baby and all…”

“It’s not that easy,” Gwen said. “He’s getting married the day after tomorrow… to someone _else_.”

“In two days?” Millie whistled. “Good, it’s not too late then.”

“Not too late for _what_?” Gwen felt a massive headache coming.

“Why, to crash the wedding, of course!” Millie exclaimed. “Or do you wanna raise your kid alone, without a father?”

“Not really,” perhaps it was the effect of her hormones playing crazy, but Gwen actually found the idea a sound one. The baby _could_ only be Rhys’s… he ought to do the right thing, then!

“All right,” Millie said, her eyes sparkling with excitement, “we must plan this very carefully. We can’t do anything before the morning visit, but I know my way around here. I’ll help you to get out; the rest is up to you.”

“Don’t worry,” Gwen said with a confident smile; now that she actually _had_ a plan, she felt a great deal better about the whole situation. “I’m an ex-cop. I know all the tricks.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
It took some effort until Molly understood what her newly-found bipedal friends wanted from her, but when she'd finally managed to get it into her clever little brain, she was more than willing to do their biding. The two humans were generous with treats, after all, and easily persuaded to pet her or scratch her between the ears. She decided to keep them. Her former master was dead; killed and eaten by some terrible monster – she'd watched it happening from safe distance, which was a disgrace, but she knew she had no chance to save him – and she needed a new home.

Perhaps if she found the monster for these two, they'll take her home. If she was very good, they might even be persuaded to give proper belly rubs. They seemed sure enough that they'd be able to deal with the monster, so she had no qualms leading them on its trail.

Andy, who’d grown up with dogs, noticed the alert position of Molly’s eyes at once.

“Hey, Mickey,” he said softly. “She’s picked up the scent!” And with that, he moved after Molly, beckoning Mickey to follow him.

“Good,” Mickey touched his earpiece, already on his way after them. “Jack? It seems we’ve got a lead here. Molly’s picked up the scent.”

“Just be careful,” Jack answered, his always so bright and carefree voice seriously worried now. “Remember, this thing eats people.”

“Don’t shit your pants, Captain Cheesecake,” Mickey grinned, with a mad gleam of excitement in his eye; it was almost like hunting down Cybermen on Pete’s World… “I’ve brought the really big calibre for this hunt,” he added, hurrying after the determinedly jogging dog and his team-mate.

“And _that_ ’s supposed to make me feel better?” Jack asked sarcastically. “Be _careful_ , guys! I _mean_ it! I’d come myself, but we’ve got a Weevil alert in Splott and I must deal with it…”

“Yeah, yeah, yadda-yadda-yadda,” Mickey grinned like a loon. “Why don’t you go and catch your Weevil and leave the fretting part to Ianto?”

“Because he’s currently passed out from exhaustion – with a little help from a mild sedative Owen has slipped into his coffee,” Jack replied.

“Hooo, boy!” Mickey whistled. “He’s so gonna kill you when he wakes up!”

“Perhaps, but by then he’d have slept a few hours,” Jack replied. “Besides, you know that death isn’t a permanent condition for me.”

“To quote my intrepid field commander, is _that_ supposed to make me feel better?” Mickey returned, jogging after Andy and the dog. “Okay, Jack, we might have something here. She’s brought us to the stairs of a substation. We’re going in.”

“Keep the connection open,” Jack ordered, “and if you see that you’ve got more than bargained for, get the hell out of there. Don’t play the hero – dead heroes ain’t as cool as people seem to believe.”

“Ya,” Mickey said dismissively. “It’s cool, man. See you later,” he looked at Andy. “Shall we, PC Davidson?”

Andy ordered Molly to sit – sensibly enough, the dog obeyed immediately, which alone showed that something dangerous must have been down there – and took out his gun.

“Watch my back,” he said, starting down the stairs.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Martha was interrupted in the middle of a long, boring series of tests by Jack’s phone call. The news about Gwen’s alien pregnancy filled her with fear and excitement at the same tame. As usual, though, excitement won the upper hand in record time.

“What do you want me to do?” she asked eagerly.

“Meet Owen at _St. Helen’s_ ; he’ll bring you a Bekaran deep tissue scanner to examine Gwen,” Jack explained. “We need to know _what_ she’s expecting, and you and Tom are the only ones she hasn’t met before, so you wouldn’t trigger her memories.”

“But Tom has no previous experience with alien lifeforms,” Martha said. “Or with alien technology.”

“Exactly,” Jack replied. “Which is why I need _you_ to do it.”

“I’m on my way,” Martha promised. “I’ll just save the test results and continue here tomorrow.”

“Thanks,” there was audible relief in Jack’s voice. “I owe you one.”

“Yes, you do,” Martha replied amiably. “Bye, Jack.”

Despite her promise, shutting down the equipment and saving the temporary results took her more than thirty minutes. Knowing that Owen would be fuming by now – the Torchwood doctor really _hated_ when people made him wait – she hurried down to the underground parking lot that she wouldn’t run into anybody there and thus lose even more time.

No such luck, though. There was movement at one of the cars, and her heart jumped into her throat when she saw at _which_ one.

Of all possible people, she _had_ to run into the ominous Agent Johnson, to whom she hadn’t even been introduced yet - a fact that didn’t seem to bother _Johnson_ , though.

“Finished for tonight, Doctor Jones?” she asked in a stereotypically deep and cold voice; _of course_ she’d know both Martha’s name and her working schedule. It was her _job_.

From the distance, all Martha could see in the dim light was the pale oval of her face, framed by shoulder-length, jet-black hair. She made no attempts to come any closer, and Martha was absurdly grateful for that.

“Not quite,” she replied. “I got an emergency call. Possible alien infestation at _St. Helen’s_.”

There was no use to try lying to her. She’d learn about it anyway. Martha just hoped she wouldn’t insist on coming with her. The last thing she and Torchwood needed was a rivalling organization interfering with their investigations.

“Hmmm,” was Johnson’s only reaction. “Is it contained?”

“Yes,” Martha _hoped_ it was so. "I need to confirm the fact of the infestation; to identify the species if I can. _If_ we already have it in our database.”

“Doesn’t Torchwood have their own medic for such things?” Johnson asked. Her voice was even, neutral, lacking any sign of judgement. She simply wanted information.

“They do,” Martha said, “but he’s a rookie on his trial period. Saw his first alien only yesterday. Unfamiliar with alien-enhanced technology, too. It’s safer and faster if I do it.”

“I see,” Johnson took something that looked like an oversized carry-all – black, of course – out of the boot of her Range Rover and shouldered it. “Good luck then, Doctor Jones.”

And to Martha’s immeasurable relief, she headed upwards, where the personnel quarters and the barracks lay.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Gun on the ready, Andy made his way down the stairs and entered the substation bathroom. It seemed abandoned, but he decided _not_ to trust the presumably false peace. He started between the stalls, kicking the doors open to check each one, and suppressed a smile. Sometimes Torchwood field work was just like police work – which had been the reason why Ianto had hired him in the first place. Torchwood _needed_ his sort of experience in the field.

The door of one of the first stalls opened, and Andy’s fingers tightened around the gun, expecting some sort of razor-toothed monster to emerge. But only an older man stepped out of the stall, clad in a conservative suit. His visage was strangely calm, considering the gun aimed directly at his head. He looked directly at Andy, like a snake trying to immobilize a bird with its hypnotic eyes.

Fortunately, Ianto had insisted that all new Torchwood members receive basic psychic training. Low-level mind control wouldn’t work on them now.

“Keep your distance!” Andy warned the man, never taking his eyes or his aim from him. “Move towards the exit and up the stairs, slowly. If you try anything stupid, I’ll shoot you on the spot.”

God, he was babbling! He _always_ babbled when nervous; how embarrassing! With his left hand, he touched his earpiece. “Mickey, one suspect going up to you.”

“Understood,” Mickey replied tersely.

During Andy’s momentary distraction, the man’s eyes suddenly turned bright red. He snarled at Andy, baring his pointed, blackened teeth and, holding up his suddenly clawed hands, he lunged at Andy. Andy nearly pissed himself. He fired instinctively, hitting the man – the _alien_ – squarely in the chest.

The man stumbled but didn’t fall. His features became… fluid for a moment, then stabilized again, forming a different, much younger face. Then he turned around and ran out of the substation bathroom, taking two stairs at a time. Andy launched after him without thinking.

“Mickey, he’s heading your way,” he yelled. “And it’s a shape-shifter, too. I’ve shot him, but he can take a lot, apparently.”

“How can I know it’s him if he can look like anybody?” Mickey’s voice sounded frustrated.

“He’s leaving a trail of black blood,” Andy told him. “That should be a sure enough sign.”

At this moment, a man came running up the stairs, one hand clutching his wounded side. With the other one he backhanded Mickey with a force that sent the Torchwood agent flying several yards backward and made him drop his gun. Then he ran down the sidewalk.

“Andy,” Mickey groaned, “I’ve lost him. Knocked me out clean; he’s bloody _strong_. Heading towards Trinity Street.”

“I see him!” Andy, also taking two stairs a time, ran after the alien. “Follow me if you can!”

He exited the sidewalk through an open iron gate, slowed down and did a one hundred and eighty-degree turn, gun at the ready.

Suddenly, the shape-shifter – now young and dark-haired, but still red-eyed and with the rotten teeth – burst out through the bushes, snarling at him. Andy emptied his entire magazine in the creature, but the bullet hits didn’t even slow it down a bit. It grabbed him, lifted him off his feet like a rag doll and slammed him down to the bags of trash and boxes behind him.

 _I’m dead_ , Andy thought, strangely calm in what seemed to be his last moment. _Worse: I’m dinner!_ He was out of ammo, not a single bullet left, and he didn’t have a rat’s chance to protect himself. _I wonder if it’s gonna hurt a lot_.

The alien screeched above him, raising its claws to tear him open, like those other poor sods, in Bute Park and behind the _Legend_ … then it slammed back against the wire gate, hit by a salvo of _really_ big bullets. It screeched one last time and fell to the ground, smoking holes of the size of chicken eggs in its chest. This time, it didn’t get up.

Mickey came running up to Andy and held out a hand to help him to his feet. “You okay, man?”

“Ask me _after_ Owen’s x-rayed my ribs,” Any groaned and looked down at the alien. “Is it dead?”

Mickey carefully prodded the shape-shifter with the muzzle of his big gun. It didn’t stir.

“Seems so, yeah. Let’s hope it isn’t just faking it.”

Andy leaned against the gate, taking shallow, painful breaths. “We should take it back to the Hub.”

“We will,” Mickey replied. “But not without help. Your ribs won’t thank you for dragging dead monsters along the street. Call Jack; see if he’s caught that Weevil yet. I’ll keep the gun aimed at this… this _thing_ , in case it tries to get up again.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Thanks to Owen’s contacts to _St. Helen’s_ , Martha was allowed into the maternity ward without questions, despite the late hour. She put on a white lab coat, hung a stethoscope around her neck and quickly entered Gwen’s sick room. To her relief, she found both Gwen and her room-mate soundly asleep.

“Just a very mild sedative I’ve slipped into their medication,” Owen smirked. “Completely harmless for a _human_ baby and for the mothers. I’m not sure about the alien, though.”

“If those guys can procreate via exo-biological insemination, they must be tough little bastards,” Martha said. “A mild sedative is nothing compared with the problem of dealing with a completely alien biochemistry, and they can obviously manage _that_ just fine. What are you doing in here, though? I thought she wasn’t supposed to see you.”

“She won’t,” Owen replied. “That’s what the sedative is for. But I need to see with my own eyes what we’re dealing with; I’m still the chief medic of Torchwood, and I’m the one who’s had the most experience with alien life forms – save for Jack, that is. But he’s not a doctor.”

Martha nodded. It made sense. As the head medic of Torchwood Three, it was Owen’s responsibility to see all possible alien threats identified. He might not be able to operate anymore, but he still had the _knowledge_ accumulated during his years as a Torchwood doctor.

“All right,” she said. “Let’s see what we’re having here.”

She switched on the Bekaran deep tissue scanner and moved it slowly above Gwen’s belly, struggling with the multiple buttons from time to time and _really_ wishing she had more than five fingers on both hands. _And_ two opposable thumbs on each. It would have made things so much easier.

“Hmmm,” she muttered. “According to this scan she’s carrying a non-sentient blastopheric mass.”

“Yep, it’s kind of alien egg all right,” Owen checked the readings. “An alien egg that hasn’t hatched yet.”

Martha nodded. “Seems so, yeah. What are we doing with her now?”

“We can’t do a thing at the moment, but first thing in the morning we’ll have to move her to a safe location,” Owen was thinking furiously. “Not to the Hub, obviously, but Torchwood has facilities outside the base.”

“You mean you’ve got procedures for this sort of situation?” Martha asked, baffled. “Has this happened before?”

“Not during my time, but yeah,” Owen was still weighing possibilities against each other. “I think, aside from the Hub, which is out of question, Flat Holm would be the safest place to deal with this. They’ve got maximum security medical facilities… but Jack won’t like it.”

“He’d like her giving birth to man-eating alien spawn even less,” Martha pointed out, and Owen had to admit that she was right. The situation needed to be contained, and Flat Holm was the second-best place for it. Jack would simply have to bite the bullet.

“All right,” he said, “but _you’re_ telling him.”

Martha grinned at him. “That’s all right. I can handle Jack just fine.”

Owen gave her a funny look. “The two of you go back a long way, don’t you? Beyond the Year That Never was, I mean, right?”

Like the others of the Torchwood team, Owen had eventually been told the basics of that year, yet none of the details.

“Forward _and_ back, actually,” Martha replied. “It’s a long story… and not mine to tell. Ask Jack.”

“Yeah, as if he’d tell us _anything_ ,” Owen muttered. “But how did you get together in the first place?”

Martha gave him an enigmatic smile. It suited her very well.

“Let’s just say that we used to see the same Doctor,” she replied.

“The right kind of Doctor?” Owen guessed, making the necessary connections. Martha just shrugged.

“About that, the judgement is still standing out,” she answered evasively. “Ianto probably wouldn’t think so.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
It was a good thing that Ianto was still out like a light, due to Owen’s sneakiness, Jack thought, hauling the unconscious Weevil over his shoulder to bring it to the vaults. The young Torchwood director would have been more than a little pissed to see his carefully created working schedule turned upside down like this.

In theory, only Sally and Trevor were supposed to be in the Hub during night watch – and either Andy or Mickey on emergency call. Both Sally and Trevor suffered from insomnia, due to violent nightmares that came less frequently if they slept during daytime; preferable in a well-lit room, so they had offered to work the graveyard shift right from the beginning.

They were both survivors. Sally survived the Sycorax invasion, due to the Doctor’s interference at the last moment. Trevor was – alongside of Ianto – one of the handful people who’d come out of Canary Wharf alive and sane, and hadn’t committed suicide afterwards. _Not yet_ , as Ianto would sometimes add in an ominous tone.

All Torchwood One survivors were on suicide watch, one way or another. Ianto’s way was to keep the only one still willing to work for Torchwood close; both for mutual support and to keep an eye on him. Fortunately, Trevor turned out to be a remarkably stable personality, who actually appreciated the fact that he was still alive and enjoyed life… as much as it was for someone working for Torchwood.

Jack thought that Trevor was a good influence on Ianto who tended to brood and let things fester.

Of course, Trevor’s mild crush on Tosh might have something to do with his delight in being alive. Too bad that the interest was so one-sided. They’d have made such a cute couple… in a geeky way. But when Jack had once carefully broken the topic to Tosh, she’d just shaken her head and told him she wasn’t looking for an ersatz for Rajesh Singh, and that doing so wouldn’t be fair to Trevor. And that was it. A shame, really.

In any case, aside from the graveyard shift, practically the entire Torchwood team was present when Jack arrived – with the understandable exception of Rhys and Emma who had other concerns at the moment and were needed during daytime anyway. Andy and Mickey had just brought in the dead alien, and Martha and Owen had also come back from _St. Helen’s_ with the scan results of Gwen’s “baby”. Tosh and Lloyd hadn’t even gone home to begin with, and Tom Milligan had woken up after a few hours of sleep, suitably freaked out by the events of his first working day at Torchwood, but ready to face whatever would come next.

What came next was Ianto, waking up from his enforced sleep way before anyone would have expected. He walked down in the middle of the main Hub area, giving Jack and Owen pointed looks that promised severe retaliation and vanished in the direction of the common showers. Less than twenty minutes later he was back again, clean-shaven and perfectly groomed, wearing the same suit but a different shirt; this time a hot pink one that did really bad things to Jack’s libido. His eyes, however, remained icy cold, and so were the looks he still kept giving Jack and Owen.

Jack prepared himself for a month on decaf. Ianto might appear quiet and subdued, not to mention unfazed by almost everything, but he was capable of long-held grudges… and very creative when it came to vengeance.

Right now, however, he chose to deal with first things first. He trotted down to the autopsy bay and took a look at the dead alien that had presumably murdered – and partially eaten – two men and a Weevil in a single day.

“Can we be certain that this is the same creature that’s laid its eggs in Gwen?” he asked. Jack shook his head. 

“Right now, we can only be reasonably sure that this is the alien that killed the bloke in Bute Park,” he said.

“And the constable behind the _Legend_ ,” Lloyd added. “The DNA analysis hasn’t run its full circle yet, but I’d risk an educated guess that we’re dealing with the same species.”

“Are we also dealing with the same individual?” Ianto asked.

The question caused moderate upheaval among his co-workers.

“You meant here could be more than one of them?” Tosh clarified, slightly creeped out by that possibility.

Ianto shrugged. “I _hope_ not; but we cannot sort out that possibility until we’re sure that all three victims – well, all four if we count the Weevil in – were attacked by the same alien.”

Owen gnawed on his lower lip for a moment, which always was a sure sing that he was thinking.

“Teaboy’s right,” he said. “I mean, two men _and_ a Weevil? And all three more than half-eaten? I don’t know how fast the metabolism of these guys is, but that’s a lot of food, even for an alien, right?”

“Oh, no!” Mickey groaned. “And I was so glad that we finally had it!”

“We _do_ have it,” Ianto pointed out, “and we can learn a lot from it now. Which, should there be more of them, will prove helpful.”

“I’ll keep running that search for the Weevil’s tag,” Sally offered. “Perhaps we’ll get lucky this time.”

“Well, it certainly isn’t in _this_ guy,” Jack agreed, looking down at the dead alien. “If the Weevil was tagged in the first place, that is. There are too many uncertain factors in this case. I don’t like it.”

Nobody argued with him about _that_.

“I wonder what species it is,” Owen eyed the corpse with professional interest. “Have you ever seen an alien like this? Any of you?”

Jack, Tosh and Martha, all ex-companions of the time-travelling alien known as the Doctor, shook their heads in unison.

“It might not be its true appearance,” Jack elaborated. “It’s a shape-shifter, and Mickey Mouse killed it in human disguise…. Well, more or less. The eyes and the teeth are a bit of a give-away.

“And the claws,” Martha supplied.

“And the black blood,” Tosh finished.

“So, Gwen is probably pregnant with the spawn of a razor-toothed monster that will eat half of the hospital once it’s born?” Ianto asked. Owen nodded glumly.

“Could that really happen?” Tom tried _not_ to freak out completely. He really did. But after what he’d already seen within one day, _that_ horror scenario was a bit much for his comfort.

Owen shrugged. “Well, look, the pregnancy's advanced and we're not familiar with the species… I just don’t know.”

“Which is why you and Tom need to open up the guy with the teeth and make sure there's no further surprises,” Jack said.

Owen glanced at Ianto, hoping that he’d counteract, but Ianto just nodded in agreement.

“Oh, hell,” he sighed. “Well, c’mon, Milligan, there’s no time like the present.”

“I’ll assist you,” Martha promised, seeing Tom’s unhappy face. “But what about Gwen?”

“We’ll have to get her out of that hospital,” Ianto replied, “and put her under surveillance in someplace safe. We can’t do it right now, not without drawing unwanted attention that would result in Retconning half the medical staff there, but first thing in the morning.”

“And take her where?” Tosh asked. “Here would be the safest, but it’s too risky; unless we want to wipe her mind clean afterwards. And I _mean_ clean. You know she’s got a higher than usual resistance level to Retcon.”

Owen glanced at Ianto again. “I gave the problem some thought and I think I’ve found a solution; but you’re not gonna like it. And neither will Jack.”

“Meaning what?” Ianto asked.

“Flat Holm,” Owen replied. “They’ve got the right facilities, and we can keep everything contained over there.”

“No way!” Jack protested, just as Owen had expected, but Ianto’s raised hand stopped him.

“It’s actually a sound idea,” Ianto said. “I’ll consider it.”

“Ianto!” Jack protested.

“I said I’ll _consider_ it,” Ianto repeated calmly. “And I’ll probably go with it, _unless_ you can come up with something better. I don’t like it either, but our choices are limited in this case.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Opening up the dead alien was probably the grossest thing Tom Milligan had ever done; and he had done a lot of gross things in his years as a doctor. Doing the autopsy on the Weevil had been a walk in the park compared with _this_. He didn’t really know why. Perhaps because the… the _thing_ looked more or less human on the outside. In the inside, however… that was a wholly different can of worms.

The worst part was the sticky black stuff filling the inside of the body. He knew, intellectually, that it had to be blood – or what _counted_ as blood by the unknown species – but it was still disgusting. Thick. Viscous. Already partially coagulated, although the process seemed a lot slower than by humans. And the thick, jelly-like black fluid made recognizing any inner organs really hard.

The fact that all three of them – plus Lloyd who was collecting samples and preparing each newly extracted organ for storage – had to wear hazmat suits while doing the autopsy didn’t make things any easier. But Owen had ordered a Level Four quarantine in the medical area, as they were dealing with an unknown and potentially lethal species, and as he was still the chief medic of the base, everyone had to follow his orders.

So the isolation walls had been raised around the autopsy bay, separating them from the rest of the Hub. Even the air within left through special biofilters, Owen explained. They couldn’t risk releasing any alien pathogens into the Hub, and, as a consequence, into the city outside. The others were watching them through the glass walls, anxious to learn what they were dealing with. 

Only Tosh was sitting at the medical computer above them, working on a three-dimensional representation of the alien for the Archives. Ianto stood behind her, helping with the details.

Under such circumstances the autopsy was going on all night. They extracted various organs, the function of which they often couldn’t even guess, Lloyd cleaned them and put them into special storage jars for further study. Some of them, however, did have equivalents in Terran lizards.

“Another reptilian species?” Tom guessed, pulling the next organ – this time a large gland – from the half-disembowelled body and handing it to Owen, who held it under the faucet to wash off the upper layer of black blood before handing it down to Lloyd.

Owen shrugged. “Who knows? It can be, though. Reptiloids are as widely spread across the universe as humans or insects. It’s a practical and durable lifeform; just think about it how long the dinosaurs lasted on this planet alone,” he looked at the now cleaned organ, frowned… and became deathly pale, all of a sudden. “Oh, shit! Look what our friend was hiding!”

“What the hell is this?” Lloyd asked. Not even the hazmat hood could completely hide the disgust on her face.

“That, ladies and gentlemen, is a Proteus gland,” Owen declared. “The shape-shifting organ of a Nostrovite.”

“And what is that, exactly?” Ianto asked.

“Trouble,” Jack replied grimly. “Big trouble.”

That earned him identical blank looks from the others.

“Talk to us, Jack,” Ianto said calmly. “What _is_ a Nostrovite? How can it be that Owen knows about it, yet there isn’t anything about it in our database?”

“Because we never had one in Cardiff,” Jack explained. “Owen ran into one while visiting Torchwood House, though, before you joined Three.”

“And conveniently forgot to make a report and add the Nostrovite to the database,” Ianto supplied. “How very professional of you.”

“Hey, I wasn’t exactly equipped to take samples!” Owen replied defensively. “The custodian of Torchwood House promptly called in UNIT after the first dead bodies, and the guys blew it to smithereens with a bazooka. Besides, a description _is_ in our database – just without pictures and DNA samples.”

“Which means that our search wouldn’t have led anywhere,” Tosh concluded unhappily. “So, tell us more about these Nostrovites, Jack.”

“Nostrovites are shape-shifting carnivorous reptiles, with a taste for human flesh… as we could see,” Jack began. “They’re intelligent and sneaky and... dammit,” he hit the wall with a fist, “I should have realized this before.”

“That's it with shape-shifters, innit?” Owen commented. “You never know what you're looking at.”

“That’s the problem,” Jack replied quietly. “I actually _do_. I’ve had dealings with them several times – just not on _this_ planet.”

“What's the big deal?” Mickey shrugged. “It's dead, ain’t it?”

“Yeah,” Owen said sourly. “ _This one_ is.”

“You mean you’re positive that we’ve got more than just one here?” Ianto asked.

Jack nodded. “Nostrovites mate for life. They have also a quite unique procreation method. The male Nostrovite carries the fertilized eggs in a sac in his mouth and passes it on to a host with a bite.”

“So that’s what happened with Gwen,” Ianto concluded. “And where does the female come in?”

“Well, she tracks down the host, and rips it open,” Jack explained. “The female is the dominant partner; usually much stronger and more aggressive than the male, cos it’s her job to protect the offspring, even in the body of the host.”

“Nostrovite childbirth,” Owen commented. “And momma's out there right now, looking for Gwen.”

“Which wouldn’t take her long, as she’s got a telepathic lead to her offspring,” Jack added. “We can’t wait till morning. We need to get Gwen off the hospital, _now_ , before the grieving widow decides to take a little snack in the maternity ward.”

“I’ll call Connolly,” Owen was already dialling the number.

“And I’m calling Flat Holm,” Ianto said, coming to a decision. “I’m sorry, Jack, but we have to do this, and we have to do this fast.”

“No,” Owen covered the phone with his hand for a moment. “Forget it, Teaboy. We need to get to Gwen before the Nostrovite does, and we need to bring her to the Hub.”

“I thought that was the very thing that we _shouldn’t_ do,” Ianto said, understandably confused a little.

“That was before I knew _what_ was inside her,” Owen replied impatiently. “Look, the only way we can remove that spawn from her is the microtron, and we can’t move _that_ to Flat Holm. Dratted machine weighs about two tons.”

Ianto considered the possibilities for a moment. “There’s no other way?” he asked.

Owen shook his head. “Nope. Unless we want to give the singularity scalpel a try.”

“Hell, no!” Jack exclaimed. “Your hands aren’t steady for that. Remember last time you tried to use it? You still owe Emma a new potted plant, by the way.”

Owen gave him an exasperated eyeroll. “Get real, Harkness, I wouldn’t do it myself. I bet Milligan’s gonna get it sussed in no time at all.”

Tom looked from one to another with a frown. “Will you kindly tell me what the heck’s a singularity scalpel?”

“Alien surgical instrument,” Owen explained. “It concentrates energy on a tiny fixed point without damaging anything on the way. It’s brilliant.”

“Yeah, and if the one operating it messes up, it kills the patient in the process,” Jack commented darkly. “Like Emma’s potted plant, when you tried to remove that bug and caused a minor explosion.”

“Too risky,” Ianto decided. “Let’s bring Gwen back to the Hub. Maximum security procedure. We can’t bring the microtron to her, so we have to bring her here. Besides, if the female Nostrovite follows her, that would be killing two birds with the same stone.”

“Could you shut your gobs for a moment?” Owen scowled. “I’m trying to make a phone call here, okay?”

He walked over to the far end of the main Hub area, talking to someone – presumably Doctor Connolly – on the phone in a low, insistent voice. Then he listened to something he was told, became chalk white and disconnected without a further word.

“People, we’ve got a problem,” he said grimly. “Connolly’s sent someone to check on Gwen, and… well, she’s bolted.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The facts about false pregnancy are the result of internet research. I hope I haven’t misinterpreted anything, as I’m not a healthcare professional myself… to put it mildly. *g*.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
**CHAPTER 09**

“She did _what_?” Rhys asked in shock.

He was understandably upset when he and Emma finally arrived in the Hub and learned the extent in which Gwen was involved in their current problem – again.

“She left the hospital, pregnant with a razor-toothed monster, of which – according to her room-mate – she believes to be _your_ baby; _and_ she might be planning to crash your wedding,” Andy summarized it for him. Again. “I’m sorry, mate, but you know what she’s like, once she’s set her mind on something. Like a dog with a bone.”

“Hey!” Mickey looked up from grooming a visibly content Molly; the dog had been patched up by Tom, bathed and fed, and seemed to accept her new, multiple owners well enough. “No need to insult the dogs!”

Ianto pulled a face. “Very funny, Mickey. So, Rhys, you know our little plague the best. Where would she go from the hospital?”

“To her parents,” Rhys answered without hesitation. “They’d always take her back, no matter how badly she screws up. They’ll be shocked to see her pregnant, but if she tells them it’s mine and she just started showing late, they’ll believe her.”

“To be honest, it’s still easier to believe than the truth; _unless_ you’re Torchwood,” Emma commented. “So, what are we doing about Gwen and her alien baby?”

“First of all, we need to find her,” Ianto said calmly. “Then we must bring her here and remove the spawn. As Owen has explained, this is the only place where we can do it.”

“But _how_ do we bring her here?” Rhys asked. “She’s not gonna follow meekly whoever tries to fetch her.”

“It all depends on the right approach,” Ianto replied. “If we send a doctor to her parents’ place who explains them that she needs to be under medical observation…”

“We could tell them that it’s a false pregnancy,” Martha suggested. “It’s a known fact that certain women desire so intensely to have a child – or are so afraid of getting pregnant – that they’d display symptoms of pregnancy. Some of those symptoms are convincing enough to fool even medical professionals.”

“But doesn’t that alien baby have a heartbeat?” Emma asked. “That would kinda negate the whole cover story.”

“No,” Jack said. “Nostrovite babies remain dormant until right before they’re ready to born. The beginning of the heartbeat alerts the mother that it’s time to free her offspring. She needs to inject a certain enzyme into the newborn’s bloodstream to keep the heart beating. That’s why she needs to literally tear the baby out of the host’s body; otherwise it would die within the hour. It can’t be born without help.”

“And how does the mother inject the enzyme?” Tom asked with professional interest.

“She bites the baby,” Jack answered matter-of-factly. “Nostrovites are big on teeth work, in every department."

Tom sprang to his feet and bolted to the washroom, where he became violently and noisily sick. Owen looked after him thoughtfully.

“Do you think he’s gonna last his three months?” he asked. “Seems to have a bit of a week stomach.”

“Says the man who was crying like a baby upon seeing his very first Weevil,” Jack commented. 

Owen gave him a dirty look. “That was hay fever,” he said.

“That’s what he _always_ says,” Tosh grinned.

“Anyway,” Ianto intervened before the banter could have gotten out of control, “we need to find Gwen right away. Rhys, you do have the address of her parents, don’t you?”

“Sure,” Rhys snatched a piece of paper from the notebook next to the phone and scribbled down an address in Swansea, “but I really don’t think I should go there.”

“Of course not,” Ianto agreed. “For that, we’ll need a doctor; one with a pleasant enough bedside manner and the ability to deal with upset parents,” he looked at Martha, who nodded.

“Sure, I can do it; _if_ you get the clearance from Colonel Mace.”

“That I can do,” Ianto said with easy confidence. “Very well then. Here is the address; please go there right away. Andy, you go with her. Gwen knows you from before Torchwood, so it should be safe enough for her to meet you.”

Andy nodded. “Will do, boss.”

“As soon as she’s here, we must remove the spawn,” Ianto continued. “Owen, I want you to have the microtron ready. And Trevor,” he turned to his former Torchwood One colleague, “have the security system programmed to detect Nostrovite biosignals from the largest possible distance. We can’t take any risks here.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Geraint and Mary Cooper were understandably shocked when their little princess returned after having been missing a day – and apparently in the last leg of an advanced pregnancy. Moreover as she had _not_ been pregnant at all two days earlier.

“I don’t know what to think about this, duckling,” her father complained. “I mean, we… uh… never dreamed this. You didn’t show at all until now.”

“Well, it was a surprise for me, too,” scowled Gwen. Her mother sighed.

“You're always full of them, but, well, this beats them all.”

“It’s not my fault that stupid birth control doesn’t work as it’s supposed to,” Gwen said defensively. “But it’s too late to do anything about it. I’m sorry.”

Her mother laughed gently. “Oh, don't be sorry, Gwen. I can't wait to see the look on Rhys’ mum's face,” she got up and gave her daughter a careful hug. “It's wonderful news, Gwen! Your dad's been going blue, holding his breath, waiting for a little grandchild.”

“I have,” Geraint Cooper admitted. “But duckling, you must give the issue some serious thought. We’re going to support you, as always, of course, but this baby has a father. And a father does have certain duties. Even if he’s about to marry someone else.”

“I know,” Gwen sighed. “It’s such a mess, really! This is the worst possible time to have a baby from my ex.”

Her mother shook her head. “Gwen, it's a _baby_. It's God's blessing,” she hugged Gwen again. “You will be a wonderful mother, even if Rhys won’t be with you to help raising the baby. Me and your dad, we'll always be there for you, and for our grandchild.”

“I’m _not_ gonna raise my child without a father!” Gwen declared forcefully. “If Rhys thinks he can get out of this affair, he’s sorely mistaken.”

“Gwen, it was _you_ who broke up with _him_ ,” her father reminded her.

“That was then,” she replied grimly. “This is now.”

Her father looked at her warily. She had that determined look about her that always led to trouble. “What are you planning, duckling?”

“You’ll see,” Gwen walked to the fridge, took out a jar of pickles and started eating them. “You’ll see, all of you.”

“Yes, I’m afraid that we will,” her father muttered unhappily.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
She had lost the trail of her offspring. Her life-mate was dead – she had felt their connection snap – and her offspring beyond reach. She’d been able to follow the host to the hospital, but while she’d been hunting, the host had vanished from there. Gone – from the hospital, perhaps from the whole town.

The connection to the hatchling’s unconscious mind still existed, but it was very faint, barely noticeable. It was just enough to track the host down… but probably not strong enough to arrive in time. And if she _didn’t_ arrive in time to help the hatchling out of the host body, it would die.

She couldn’t allow _that_. With her life-mate dead, she would never spawn again. She _had_ to save this hatchling – her last – by any means necessary. And then she needed to find a secure nest where she could nurse the hatchling to enough strength to leave this planet again.

Originally they had planned to remain here until their offspring was fully grown. The town could have fed all three of them, without drawing too much attention, once the spawning time was over. Under normal circumstances, they only needed to eat once in every two or three months… if she had calculated the time cycles of the planet correctly. 

That would have been doable. They were experienced, careful hunters outside the spawning frenzy, and the town had enough people nobody would miss.

Not to mention the primitive alien race dwelling in the sewers. They didn’t taste as good, nor were they as tender as the primary species, but they were free prey. And they broadcast the most delicious feelings of terror and rage while dying. She could reach into their rudimentary minds with her superior intelligence and devour their feelings the same way she would devour their flesh.

Yes, it should have been the ideal place to raise their hatchling. But something had gone wrong from the beginning. They had been found out too soon; became the hunted themselves, instead being the hunters. And the locals had weapons they weren’t supposed to have. Weapons no Level Five planet was supposed to have developed already.

Weapons with enough firepower to kill her kind – and now her life-mate was dead, leaving her with the sole responsibility of raising their spawn.

That was _not_ supposed to happen. Taking care of the offspring was male duty. Hers would have been to hunt and feed her family. Now she had to become both caretaker _and_ protector due to the miscalculation that had brought them to this planet. A planet that had turned out to be the wrong choice.

But that couldn’t be helped now. She had to find the host, and she had to find it quickly. Her spawn didn’t have much time left; a few local days, at most. She had to get the hatchling out of the host body before it became its coffin.

Time was the most important issue, and the limitations of a human body slowed her down. She had to risk being seen; but in the sewers, among the primitive aliens, that risk was neglectable. What counted now was speed.

She changed back to her true form, lifted the next best canal lid and slipped down into the servers to follow the weak mental link that connected her to the hatchling.

In a radius of two hundred feet, the Weevils covered in blank terror, too petrified to even think of fleeing.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
“Is this the street?” Martha asked when Andy parked the car – not the big, honking Torchwood SUV, that would have made the whole sneaky attempt kind of pointless, but his own vehicle, a geriatric yellow Mini that seemed way too small for his lanky frame – in a free parking zone in Swansea, within walking distance to _Pelletier’s_.

Martha happened to know _that_ , as she’d accompanied Emma and Sally to try on their dresses in _Monsieur_ Richarte’s establishment a few times. In truth, she’d even let herself be seduced to buy something simple yet supremely elegant to wear at the wedding. It had been pricey but – hopefully – well worth every penny spent on it. After all, Tom was coming, too.

The ex-constable nodded. “Yep, Cunningham Terrace. Rhys said the house is at the other end of the lane,” he took a critical look around, measuring up the surroundings. “Very posh. I wonder how Gwen ended up first as a shop girl and then as a policewoman,” he paused briefly, then added in a thoughtful manner. “Although, knowing her mother as I do, I shouldn’t be surprised. _I’d_ have run away from home, too.”

“Wait until you’ve met _mine_ ,” Martha replied darkly.

“Why?” Andy asked with a frown. “Jack seems to like your Mam well enough.”

“Jack _adores_ her,” Martha corrected, “and Mum loves Jack dearly, too. She became his only confidant after… after the things that had happened on the _Valiant_. I think Jack needed an ersatz mother more than anything else, and Mum… she needed someone to pamper,” she grinned briefly. “It was a match made in heaven; and it took the pressure off the rest of us.”

Andy’s frown deepened. “What pressure?”

“Mum in mother hen mode can smother an army,” Martha explained in fond exasperation. “But Jack seemed to enjoy being smothered by her.”

“After several hundred deaths it’s not really surprising,” Andy commented dryly; then he stopped and checked the house number. “Number sixty-nine; this is it,”

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Martha asked primly. “Use that doorknocker already!”

Andy sighed and did as he’d been told. A few minutes later the door opened and a well-clad, middle-aged woman, with her greying blonde hair in a French twist and a long neck like a goose’s, looked at them in surprise. Particularly at Andy, whom she seemed to recognize at once.

“Andy Davidson!” she exclaimed. “Look at you! What are you doing here?”

“We’re looking for Gwen,” Andy replied. “Is she in?”

The woman – presumably Gwen’s mother – gave him a cool, calculating look.

“How comes that you haven’t found it necessary to see her for half a year, and now you just pop up, out of the blue?” she asked. “I find that a little strange.”

“Mrs. Cooper,” Martha intervened, “I’m Doctor Jones from _St. Helen’s Hospital_. Could I speak with you first? About the condition of your daughter?”

Mrs. Cooper stared at her for a moment with suspicion. “What kind of doctor _are_ you anyway? A therapist?”

“Oh, no, I’m just a junior doctor at the maternity ward,” Martha smiled disarmingly. “We _really_ need to talk, Mrs. Cooper. It’s for the best of your daughter. May we come in?”

Mary Cooper hesitated for a moment, looking from Andy to the lady doctor and back. Then she sidestepped to allow them in.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
“ _False_ pregnancy?” Gwen was waked from her much-needed afternoon nap by the distressed outcry of her father. “What do you mean by _false_ pregnancy?”

“It is a medical condition, also known as hysterical pregnancy,” an unknown female voice answered with professional precision. “However, it’s most commonly termed pseudocyesis. Basically, it means the appearance of clinical or subclinical signs and symptoms associated with pregnancy when the person is, in truth, not pregnant.”

“You mean Gwen’s just _simulating_ pregnancy?” Gwen heard the doubtful voice of her mother. 

All voices were coming from the living room, so she carefully sneaked down the stairs to listen at the door. What were they _talking_ about?

“No,” the unknown voice replied. “In fact, patients developing pseudocyesis firmly believe that they are truly pregnant. It is generally estimated that pseudocyesis is caused due to changes in the endocrine system of the body. As a result, those changes lead to the secretion of hormones which then cause physical changes. Those changes can mislead both doctors and patients, in extreme cases.”

“What changes do you mean?” her father asked.

“Symptoms similar those of true pregnancy and often hard to distinguish from it,” the unknown woman explained. “Such natural signs as amenorrhoea, morning sickness, tender breasts, and weight gain may all be present. Abdominal distension is the most common physical symptom; the abdomen expands in the same manner as it does during pregnancy, so that the affected woman looks pregnant… just like your daughter does.”

“Is that why she was taken into the maternity ward at once?” her father still didn’t seem ready to believe it.

“Many healthcare professionals can be deceived by the symptoms associated with pseudocyesis, too,” came the answer. “Studies show that eighteen per cent of women with pseudocyesis were at one time diagnosed as pregnant by medical professionals. In extreme cases, the body can even produce pregnancy hormones, without actual fertilization having happened.”

“And you really believe _that’s_ happening to Gwen?” her mother asked uncertainly, hesitating between relief and disappointment.

“Mrs. Cooper,” the unknown woman, presumably a doctor, answered gently. “Do _you_ really believe that your daughter has become nine months pregnant overnight? Such things simply _cannot_ happen.”

“She said it was a side effect of birth control,” her father, not quite willing to give up the idea of a grandchild, now that he’d got used to it, said stubbornly. “That it suppressed the symptoms until know.”

“I’m sorry, but that’s just wishful thinking,” the lady doctor answered. “None of the contraceptives currently in use can do that. In fact, I haven’t even heard of any birth control method that would suppress pregnancy symptoms instead of prevent conception.”

“But what could cause such a thing then?” her father asked.

“The underlying cause is often mental,” the lady doctor explained. “The most common theories explain false pregnancy with emotional conflict. It is thought that an intense desire to become pregnant, or an intense fear of becoming pregnant, can create internal conflicts and changes in the endocrine system, which may explain some of the symptoms of pseudocyesis.”

“But they don’t know for sure, do they?” her mother asked.

“No, I’m afraid not.”

“So, is there a treatment for this… condition?” her father, sad yet accepting the facts.

“There are several things we can try,” the lady doctor answered. “The treatment that has had the most success is demonstrating to the patient that she is not really pregnant by the use of ultrasound or other imaging techniques. It’s also the least offensive and doesn’t present an additional burden for her already strained system. First, however, we need to take her back to the hospital.”

“Why that? She isn’t pregnant, is she?”

“No, she’s not, but at the moment, we still don’t know whether her symptoms are based on a medical or a mental condition. We need to keep her under surveillance for a few days, in order to find the right therapy for her problem. Once we know what the actual case is, treating the symptoms themselves shouldn’t be too complicated.”

“Can you promise that?” her mother asked in a trembling voice.

“We’re quite certain, yes,” the lady doctor said.

Her voice didn’t sound very familiar, and yet it seemed to touch something deep in Gwen’s mind. Something forgotten or never-quite-known. It bothered her, so she opened the door for a crack to peer into the living room of her parents.

She recognized Andy, of course, wondering why her ex-partner would be here in the first place. He couldn’t be arsed to visit her since she’d left the police, so why would he come _now_? Next to Andy sat an elegant black woman in an expensive trouser suit and with a beehive hairdo. A woman she _had_ seen somewhere before – but _where_?

Oh God! Now the memory came back to her with disturbing sharpness. She’d seen this woman in Cardiff, near the Millennium Centre… in the company of a man wearing an old-fashioned, long military coat. The same man that had attacked her, just a day ago!

And she was trying to persuade Gwen’s parents that their daughter wasn’t really pregnant – why would she do that? Did she want the baby, for some sort of sick experimentation? The newspapers had been full of horrid reports about companies like Pharm and others of its kind, and what they were supposedly doing to their test subjects…

Or had she been hired by Rhys, to take her baby, so that he could marry his little blonde slut without having to pay for a child? And Andy was _helping_ them? She had always thought they were mates, she and Andy. Why would he turn against her like that? Just because she hadn’t returned to him after breaking up with Rhys?

Were they _all_ conspiring against her?

“Not _my_ baby, they ain’t gonna have it!” Gwen muttered angrily, her mind whirling like crazy. She had to get away while Rhys' cronies were still making small talk to her parents.

The front door was out of question; that one could only be reached through the living room, and besides, she wouldn’t fit into her own car with her pregnant belly. Unfortunately, the house was a relatively new building, without a back door for the personnel. That would have been helpful.

But she could always climb out of the kitchen window, into the back yard, where she could reach the garage unnoticed. Her father’s car was large and comfortable enough, even for a driver nine months pregnant – and it was parked in the garage, as opposite to in front of the house like her own. She could flee with the Daimler.

She didn’t care to go back to her room and pack a few things; she didn’t even dare to go back for her credit cards. Dawdling could have meant that they’d start to look for her, and she couldn’t afford _that_. Climbing through the window with her hugely pregnant belly was hard – not to mention time-consuming – enough. She needed to move, and she needed to move _now_.

She ran to the garage as fast as the additional weight of her baby allowed, praying to find a screwdriver with which she could short-circuit her father’s car. She knew he’d never leave the ignition key stuck; her mother would have his head for that. Fortunately, she’d learned how to break up cars while walking the beat. If she managed to get away, one of her friends, either Carrie or Trinia, would give her shelter. 

Until she could think of someplace safe, that is. Because Rhys knew her friends, of course, and would direct Andy right to them. But once she had an ally to help her, she would find a hideout. 

At least until the wedding. Because she was more determined than before to reveal Rhys’ shameful acts towards her and their unborn child. _That_ would be a wedding none of the guests was gonna forget. _Ever_.

She slipped into the garage, found the screwdriver she needed to first open the door on the driver side and then short-circuit the car. Once the engine started, she burst out of the garage as soon as the garage door opened wide enough to pass through. Holding the steering wheel with one hand, she fished her phone out of her pocket with the other one and hit speed dial Number Two.

“Carrie?” she all but screamed. “Yeah, it’s me. Listen, Carrie, I need your help. I’m in trouble. In really, really big trouble. Can you meet me right away?”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
“Doctor Jones, you gotta be kidding!”

This was perhaps the first time that Rhys heard the always calm and collected Ianto Jones lose it. He couldn’t have been the only one, because Lloyd, Sally, Trevor and Mickey looked at their young boss totally perplexed. Ianto asked a few more questions (that revealed nothing) and then slammed down the receiver quite… temperamentally.

“Gwen’s gone. Again.”

“Oh, no!” Tosh exclaimed. “How could they let her get away again?”

“She’s one determined woman, I have to give her that,” Ianto sighed. “While Martha and Andy were talking to her parents, she climbed out of the window and fled with her father’s car. Which is no small feat, in her current condition.”

“Once she’s set her mind to something, there’s no way to stop her,” Rhys agreed. “We ought to check her friends; she might be calling one of them to find a place to hide.”

“Give their addresses to Andy,” Ianto instructed. “If necessary, I’ll call Detective Swanson and get some outside help. The less we show our faces in this the better.”

Rhys nodded glumly; then he looked at Emma. “Sweetheart, I’m afraid we’ll have to cancel the wedding. Or, at least, postpone it until we have found Gwen – _and_ that bloody Nostrovite.”

Emma’s face crumpled in misery but she nodded in obvious reluctance. “You’re right. We cannot endanger your family and all our friends.”

She was almost in tears but tried to be brave about having her wedding, for which she had been preparing things so long and with so much love, being cancelled.

“Actually,” Jack began slowly, “as much as I agree that it’s a great risk, having the wedding take place as planned would be the best way to get both, Gwen _and_ the Nostrovite.”

“How that?” Rhys clearly wasn’t enthusiastic about the idea, and who could have blamed him?

“Think about it,” Jack said. “Gwen wants to crash your wedding, so she’ll be there. Momma Nostrovite wants her baby, which is currently in Gwen’s belly, so she’ll be there, too. We could kill two birds with the same stone.”

“Yeah, _kill_ being the key word here,” Rhys muttered.

“He’s right; the female Nostrovite would probably eat a few wedding guests in the process,” Tom supported him. “This is too dangerous.”

“But also the best way to contain the situation,” Ianto said thoughtfully. “So, how could we do this without endangering innocent bystanders?”

“We could postpone the wedding by, say, two hours,” Jack suggested, “And keep the wedding guests someplace safe until it’s all over. _Then_ we clean up and the wedding can take place as it was planned.”

“And why would either Gwen or the Nostrovite reveal themselves to an empty room?” Tosh asked doubtfully.

Jack shot her one of his trademark thousand megawatt grins.

“That’s the beauty in the whole thing, Tosh. There _will_ be a wedding at the appointed time… or, at least, it would _look_ like that.”

The others looked at him blank-faced.

“All right,” Ianto finally said. “You’ve got our attention. Care to elaborate?”


	10. Chapter 10

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
**CHAPTER 10**

The usual complete boredom was lying heavily in the air all over the secret UNIT base just outside Cardiff. Private Ross Jenkins, currently on duty in Colonel Mace’s anteroom and bored out of his skull (as usual), was playing _Alien War_ on his computer (as usual) – with the sound effects muted, of course. He couldn’t afford another mark in his already… erm… _colourful_ record, even though without the sound effects the game wasn’t half the fun it was supposed to be.

Harris and Stevie often wondered why he’d waste his time re-living the Sontaran invasion… well, sort of. He readily admitted that he didn’t understand it himself. Nonetheless, he couldn’t leave it. Whenever he managed to beat the alien invaders in a dogfight, it felt as if he’d won a point against the Sontarans – as if the two things had anything to do with each other!

“Jenkins, mate, you’re on your way to become addicted to the sodding game,” Harris had warned him repeatedly, and Jenkins had to admit that there was some truth in _that_. But it was a way to deal with the horrid memories and keep some semblance of sanity.

Besides, how was it any worse than Stevie and Harris shagging like bunnies while covering the inside of their lockers with posters of naked girls? Not that he’d ever _caught_ them going for it, of course. But the amount of time they spent together both on and off-duty was beyond suspicious.

He wondered sometimes if it was the Sontaran mind control that had bent Stevie and Harris the other way. They’d been always chasing skirts before; if he thought about it, so had been he. And while he hadn’t turned to other blokes, it was also true that he hadn’t had a girlfriend since his recovalescence. He had simply lost interest. A shame, actually; their new medical officer was awfully pretty. 

_And_ she was a civilian, so non-fraternization rules shouldn’t be a problem.

So, why couldn’t he bring up any real interest? What had that bloody Sontaran weapon done to him? Gelded him?

Oh, shit! His attention had only drifted for a moment, but that had been enough to have his orbital defence platform shot to smithereens by the alien invaders. There was a spectacular explosion, and then the dreaded words GAME OVER flashed across the screen. He banged his fist on the desktop.

“Dammit! Dammit, dammit, dammit!” It was not fair! He had been winning, big time!

At the same moment, the door to Colonel Mace’s office was torn wide open and a royally pissed-off colonel looked out with a scowl. “Jenkins! In my office, now!”

Jenkins hurriedly signed off from the game and obeyed. Mere minutes later, Privates Harris and Grey came running as well, followed by Doctor Jones.

“Sit,” Colonel Mace ordered. “You’ve been selected to take part in a joint mission of Torchwood and UNIT. Doctor Jones will tell you the details.”

“But sir, we haven’t been declared fit for armed duty yet,” Harris, always the sanest of them, protested.

“Tough,” the colonel replied, unimpressed. “Torchwood needs assistance with containing an alien infestation, and I can’t send anyone else; the others are needed here.”

Jenkins understood. They were expendable; the others, who weren’t damaged, were not. Well, it was still better than a psychiatric institute.

“So, what will we have to do?” he asked.

“Something _you’re_ particularly good at, Jenkins,” the colonel snorted. “Looking pretty and getting on people’s nerves.”

“In that case Private Grey and I won’t be needed at all,sir,” Harris commented. “Jenkins manages _that_ alone.”

“Up yours,” Jenkins returned amiably.

Stevie Grey didn’t participate in the banter. He just looked from one to another – and especially to their commanding officer – with wide, worried eyes.

“What the colonel meant,” Doctor Jones interfered smoothly before the banter could have turned into a real fight, “is that we need to catch a shape-shifting alien at a fake wedding and need people who’d play the wedding guests. The police send a few constables in civilian clothes, but we need to simulate a small crowd. I hope you’ve got appropriate clothing, gentlemen?”

“You mean tuxedos or what?” Harris frowned.

“Actually, suits will do,” Doctor Jones smiled.

“I’ve got one in cashmere brown,” Jenkins said, sounding bored; at the surprised looks of the other two, he shrugged. “My aunt insisted, and so we got one on a sale. It was either that, or aubergine or olive green. Can you imagine me in an olive green suit?”

“Actually, I can,” Harris grinned. “You always had a hang for impossible colours.”

“Cashmere brown will do nicely,” Doctor Jones said hurriedly. “You’ll come as my date anyway, and I’ll be wearing mauve – a perfect match.”

“What about us?” Harris asked. “The only suit I ever owned was the one I wore at the funeral of my Gran. Do you have a suit, Stevie?” Private Grey shook his head mutely.

“That’s okay, we’ll borrow for you some pinstriped ones like those of the hotel personnel,” Doctor Jones said. “That would make you look part of the environment, which would be useful,” she looked at her watch. “Very well, gentlemen. The fake wedding takes place tomorrow, at 3 pm. I’ll fetch you at noon. Be ready.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
The next day – the day of the wedding – started early for Martha Jones. She drove to the Torchwood Hub in the grey hours of the morning, as Ianto was holding there the last debriefing before the big showdown.

Although it rather looked as if he’d been serving coffee to everyone when Martha descended via invisible lift, waving to an excited Myfanwy on her way down.

“This is Jack’s plan, and he’ll be calling the shots,” he explained with a shrug and a smile. “I’ll just provide the necessary supplies, as you can see.”

And with that, he took his place at the head of the conference table and reached for his own coffee cup. Jack nodded, hurriedly stuffed a whole Danish in his mouth, licked his fingers clean – earning a reproachful glare from Ianto – and swallowed so fast that he nearly choked on his snack. He’d always had a sweet tooth, but it had gotten worse since his return. 

Fortunately, field work took care of the excess calories. Running after Weevils required a lot of fat to be burned.

“Right,” he said, “we need to prepare for this action carefully. Nostrovites can be lightning fast once changed back to their natural form; but even in human disguise, they would be faster than most people.”

“Still, their best weapon is the moment of surprise,” Andy said. “How do we know what to look for when they can look like anybody? Speaking of which, are their shape-shifting abilities gender-specific?”

Jack shook his head. “Not by default. But they usually imitate persons of their own gender; either by instinct or it’s simply easier for them, for some reason.”

“Do we know anything about their preferred manner to attack,” Swanson, also invited to the debriefing, asked. Jack nodded.

“As a rule, they either go for the throat of their prey – if they’re using their teeth – or they tear open its belly with their claws.”

“We should all be wearing bullet-proof vests,” muttered Andy. “And protective collars.”

“More like steel armour, like those medieval knights,” Mickey grinned.

Andy gave him an annoyed look but didn’t deign to answer.

“Actually,” Jack said, “that’s exactly what we’re going to do. “Well… more or less. Ianto, have you found those metal skins?”

Ianto nodded and swallowed his coffee before answering. “As you suspected, they were in the old armoury, with all the stuff from the Victorian era. I don’t think anybody ever used them.”

“Because they couldn’t figure out how to activate them,” Jack guessed. “How many of them are there?”

“Only five, unfortunately,” Ianto said. “We’ll have to give them to the most endangered ones: the bridal couple, the best man – and probably Rhys’ parents. I’m worried, though, if they would fit.”

“Oh, definitely,” Jack reassured him. “They’re designed to fit everyone.”

“Would the two of you mind to tell the rest of us what you’re talking about?” Swanson asked, sounding vaguely pissed.

“Sorry. Of course we will,” Ianto stood and fetched something from the adjoining storeroom. It looked – well, it looked a great deal like a medieval hauberk with a three-inch-high iron collar. “Here it is; the tack vests of the future.”

Swanson took it from him and turned it this way and that, examining it from all sides doubtfully. It seemed thin like paper and was feather-light.

“Put it on,” Jack said, grinning.

Swanson frowned. “And how?”

“Let me show you,” Jack pressed the ‘hauberk’ on both sides, and it opened like a waistcoat. He helped her into it, and the thing wrapped itself around her torso, adjusting to her shape like a second skin and closed hermetically.

“Intelligent metal from the forty-third century,” Jack explained. “One size for everyone.”

“Cool!” there was a slightly manic gleam in Andy’s eyes. “Why ain’t we wearing these whenever we go out Weevil hunting?”

“Well, there’s a slight catch,” Jack admitted.

“Ain’t there always?” Owen commented sourly. “So, what are the side effects? Do they make your hair fall out or your balls turn blue?”

Jack ignored him with practiced ease. “These vests work with the natural electricity of the human body,” he explained. “They could drain the energy of the wearer so much that we might drop like a stone from exhaustion in the middle of a Weevil hunt. That’s why they’ve fallen out of use by my time. But for a short period, say an hour or two, with no strenuous activities, they’ll be safe enough.”

“Then you could really let me play the bride,” Emma pouted. Jack shook his head.

“Out of question. You’re not a field agent; you don’t have Sally’s reflexes. I won’t risk your safety.”

“You don’t seem to be worried about Rhys’ safety, though,” Emma pointed out.

“We don’t have a choice in _that_ ,” Jack answered, a bit testily. “Gwen won’t be fooled by a substitute. She doesn’t know that you’re the actual bride, though; she doesn’t even remember you. So we can exchange one blonde woman in a wedding dress for another.”

“Besides, the person in the most danger will be Gwen herself,” Ianto added. “As long as people make a wide berth around her, they should be safe.”

“Especially Rhys,” Andy commented. “It’s not the Nostrovite you oughtta look out for, mate; it’s your vengeful ex.”

Martha shook her head in confusion. “I still don’t understand how could she blame Rhys for everything, since it was she who threw him over for a bloke with more money.”

“Pesky details like that never bothered our Gwen,” Owen remarked cynically. “A laugh in a minute she was, with her ever-bleeding heart and all-consuming compassion.”

“’cept when it came to her colleagues,” Andy countered.

“Or the man she supposedly loved so much,” Tosh added. “Save for the times when she was shagging Owen or ogling Jack.”

Ianto cleared his throat. “While I basically agree, we have more important things to discuss right now. Jack, if we could return to the plan…”

“Right,” Jack displayed the layout of the hotel ground on the big screen. “As you can see, there are three entries: a main one and two side ones. We must cover all three, which is why I’ve asked Colonel Mace for the loan of a few handsome young soldiers.”

“What for?” Owen asked. “They won’t know what the Nostrovite’s gonna look like. And we won’t either.”

“They won’t be looking for the Nostrovite,” Jack explained. “They’ll be looking for Gwen. Where she is, the Nostrovite’s gonna pop up, sooner or later.”

“Yeah, but it might decide to take a snack first,” Owen warned. “They’re said to have a ravenous appetite during their spawning period. How many civilians will be there anyway?”

“Hopefully just the hotel personnel,” Ianto said, “and we’ve already warned them to make themselves rare between three pm and five pm. Andy, see to it that any wedding guests who may arrive early be led here,” he showed them several rooms, including a small parlour, in the east wing. “They must stay there, no matter what. Mickey, you and Trevor will get there right after this debriefing and start working on enhanced security measures.”

“But how will I know if someone belongs there or not?” Andy asked. “I mean, I know Rhys’ parents and most of his mates, but I’ve never met your family, or those UNIT blokes.”

“Here,” Jack pushed a staple of computer printouts into his hands. “Photos of all people with an invitation. Study them. Should any unknown faces appear, alert the rest of us.”

“Or if someone happens to arrive twice,” Ianto added. “Guests in pairs should be relatively safe, but we mustn’t take any risks. A stun gun won’t cause any lasting damage; better to knock out an innocent human than let a Nostrovite slip through our net.”

“I’ll get there earlier, too,” Tosh offered, “to help Sally put on the wedding dress and to redirect the CCTV feed to the SUV.”

Jack nodded in agreement. “Do it. Owen, any ideas what we ought to do in case we can’t get Gwen back here in time?”

“I told you what the only other way is,” Owen replied.

“Yeah, the singularity scalpel,” Jack pulled a face. “And _I told_ you what _I think_ about that idea. Even if your hands were steady enough…”

“Listen,” Owen interrupted, “we ain’t having the luxury of being choosy. I’ve showed Milligan how the scalpel works.”

Jack eyed Tom doubtfully. “And he can use it properly?”

“No, I can’t,” Tom replied promptly.

“Bullshit,” Owen interrupted again. “You can do it and you will do it. I’ll be there, too. We have to do something. If we don’t the alien baby will die inside her, dissolving into a bucketful of digestive acids, and I don’t need to tell you what _those_ would do to human flesh.”

“Thank you, Owen,” Sally pushed away her plate with the still untouched Danish on it. “Just the mental image I needed with my breakfast.”

Owen shrugged, snatched the Danish from her plate and devoured it with gusto. Sally rolled her eyes.

“I swear he does it on purpose!”

“Of course he does,” Tom agreed. “He did it in the mess hall at university already.”

“And nobody ever beat him up?” Mickey asked in surprise, clearly more than ready to remedy that particular omission.

Tom shook his head. “Nah, there was no need for that. Medical students generally have an iron stomach… after having attended to their first autopsy anyway.”

Martha, Owen and Lloyd nodded in complete agreement, while Sally was getting a little green around the gills.

“We thank you for this fascinating insight into the life of a medical student, gentlemen,” Ianto said dryly. “Now if we could return to the actual problem…”

Martha and Tom tried to look contrite (Owen didn’t even bother), and they discussed the possible use of the singularity scalpel for a while. Tom remained adamant that he could not safely operate it – not _yet_ anyway, not for a while, most likely – and so in the end they agreed that if needs must be, Martha would be the one using it. She had more experience with alien technology and had experimented with the scalpel a few times already, under Owen’s supervision.

They also agreed in the pairings, deciding that Jack would go with Lloyd (Ianto and Tosh, substituting for the parents of the bride, had to go together), Swanson with Trevor and Doctor Connolly with Tom, so that they would appear to be merely wedding guests. Andy and Mickey would be disguised as hotel employees, just like the UNIT soldiers, while Corporal Carol Bell, also from UNIT, would play the registrar. Private Jenkins was chosen to impersonate the best man, as Rhys didn’t want to endanger Banana Boat, with Martha and Detective Fenner as the bridesmaids… a function they’d be filling at the real wedding, too, as Emma decided to ask Martha in the last moment.

Martha didn’t mind having been asked as an afterthought. She wasn’t Torchwood, after all, not really; neither had she known Emma for long. In truth, she was actually flattered by the request. She so loved a good wedding – even if it was someone else’s.

“Well, if that’s all, I’ll go back to the base,” she said. “I’ve got a pair of skittish soldiers to put into proper suits.”

Because there could be no doubt that Jenkins was more than capable of getting properly dressed without help. He was something of a peacock, and it showed, even if he was wearing a uniform.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
She had to fetch the pinstriped suits for Harris and Grey from the rental first, though. They had been pre-ordered by Ianto, who’d estimated the soldiers’ respective sizes based on their UNIT file, but the rental was at the other end of the town. So it was late morning when she finally got back to the base. Her two victims – co-workers, she corrected herself with a hidden grin – were off-duty and put on the suits with a minimum of complaining.

The suits fit surprisingly well.

“That’s Ianto Jones for you,” Martha smirked, remembering the banter between Jack and Ianto about this particular issue. “Son of a master tailor; the family eye has done the job again. How does it feel? Are you comfortable?”

Harris looked down on himself with a critical eye. “It’s a tad unusual, ma’am. When I put on me civvies, I wear jeans and t-shirts; that sort of thing. But we’ll manage, won’t we, Stevie?”

Private Grey nodded, with a vaguely anxious expression on his face. Harris patted him on the back encouragingly.

“Of course we will. Don’t we always?”

“I’m sure you’ll do just fine,” Martha said. “You’ll get your weapons from Mickey, after we’ve arrived at the hotel.”

“But we ain’t cleared for armed duty, ma’am,” Harris reminded her.

“Those are stunner weapons,” Martha replied, “for self-defence. Torchwood will handle the bigger guns,” she looked around, mildly annoyed. “Where the hell is Private Jenkins?”

Harris sighed. “In his quarters, sleeping, most likely. He tends to sleep late when he’s off-duty.”

“Yeah, but he’s not off duty now,” Martha said sharply. “He should be preparing himself for this mission. And if he thinks he can make me wait, just because I’m a civilian and a woman, he’s sorely mistaken.”

She stormed off angrily, and Harris, who was well aware of Jenkins’ sleeping habits, grinned at Grey.

“Come on, Stevie. _This_ we have to see.” Grey nodded in agreement, and the two jogged after the doctor.

When they caught up with her, Martha was banging on Jenkins’ door with her fist angrily.

“Jenkins! Open the door at once, or God help me…”

The door opened in mid-sentence, revealing Jenkins, leaned against the doorframe with one elbow – bare-arsed naked as on the day of his birth. He seemed completely serious and completely unfazed, as if he’d been fully clothed and they were having tea.

“Aye, ma’am? What can I do to please you?”

If he expected Martha to be shocked or mortally embarrassed, he was disappointed. After having travelled in the company of Jack Harkness, the most un-self-conscious guy in the universe, there was very little in the manner of nakedness that could still shock her.

“You can move your lazy arse out of bed, Private, and get dressed,” she snapped. “In case you shouldn’t manage to do that within twenty minutes, remember that I’ve got several alien substances in my lab that can cause warts in the most inconvenient places for someone who sits in the colonel’s anteroom for hours upon hours.”

Jenkins remained completely unfazed by that threat. “Aye, aye, ma’am,” he replied with a mock salute; then he turned around lazily and wrapped a dark blue towel around his waist – slowly enough to give her ample time to enjoy the sight.

“Twenty minutes!” Martha called after him, before whirling around – only to see Harris and Grey laughing their heads off at the other end of the corridor. They’d clearly expected to witness just this scene, and chosen not to warn her in advance.

Male solidarity could be such an annoying thing sometimes.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
“I dunno, Gwen,” Carrie said, driving her car towards Margham Park just within speed limit. “Are you sure this is a good idea? I mean, you could get your alimony from Rhys on the legal way. What good would it do to crash his wedding?”

Gwen, sprawled all over the back seat like a beached whale, shrugged. “Well, at least he won’t be able to marry his little bimbo today. That would give him the time to come to his senses and realize whom he belongs to.”

“You expect him to return to you after this – after everything that’s happened between the two of you?” Trina, their third friend, asked doubtfully.

“Why of course!” Gwen said in surprise. “He’s been nagging me for a child ever since we came together in high school – now he can have it. He won’t let this chance slip through his fingers.”

“But what if he reacts differently than what you expect?” Trina asked, her concern apparent. “What if he decides to sue you for custody for the baby? It wouldn’t be the first time a man tried that. And as a married man with a good job, a house to his name and a stable income, he’d even have the chance to win!”

“Nonsense,” Gwen said dismissively.

“She does have a point,” Carrie warned her. “You don’t have a job, you don’t have a flat on your own, and you’ve just recovered from a severe trauma, complete with memory loss, half a year ago.”

“Are you saying I won’t be able to take care of my child properly?” Gwen demanded in outrage. “On whose side are you anyway?”

Trina turned back from the passenger seat and patted her knee comfortingly. “We are on your side, sweetheart. That’s why we’re coming with you, so that Rhys can see that you’re not alone. But you must really consider your chances carefully.”

“You worry too much,” Gwen replied self-confidently. “It will work out, you’ll see it. Once Rhys realizes that this is his child, he’ll send his blonde bimbo packing and he’ll come back to me. He’s a good bloke; he knows what his duties are.”

Trina gave Carrie a helpless look. Carrie shook her head slightly, as if saying: leave it, you know what she’s like, and so Trina gave up the hopeless attempt to make Gwen reconsider.

At least they could hope to have some fun, watching a wedding getting crashed.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Tosh’d had to drive back for some more equipment that had been forgotten in the Hub after having placed all the surveillance devices in the hotel. So she felt a little stressed as she made her way from the Torchwood SUV, parked discretely out of sight behind the hotel, to the lobby, balancing the large dress box with her new evening dress and trying to peek around it to see where she was going in the first place. The fact that early-coming guests were blocking her way didn’t help. 

Why were they already here anyway? They weren’t supposed to come before 4 pm. The actual wedding had been rescheduled for 5 pm, in the hope to have the Nostrovite dealt with by three. Why couldn’t people just do what they were told?

She tried to dodge the married couple – a slightly pudgy-faced blond man and a black woman of almost tragic beauty – who were admiring their surroundings with wide-eyed awe.

“Oh, this is nice,” the woman said wistfully. “Isn't it, Mike?” 

“Class on toast,” her husband agreed, looking around; then he spotted an overweight bloke who was already sweating profusely and called over to him. “You should get a brochure, Mervyn, in case some poor girl ever gets drunk enough to marry you.”

His wife slapped him playfully on the hand. “Don’t be so mean, Mike!”

The chubby bloke rolled his small eyes. “Very funny, Halloran. I tell you what; it's going to take more than a swanky hotel to get a catch like me down the aisle.”

“Sudden blindness comes to mind,” Tosh muttered in annoyance and tried to dodge them again.

Once again, however, she was hindered - by a handsome, blond young man, wearing a suit with a figured dark gold silk waistcoat, who was coming down the main stairs to join the wedding guest.

“And here's Mad Mervyn, the Minister of Sound!” he announced with a charming grin. He had a marked resemblance to Prince William, on whom Tosh used to have a major crash as a young girl – with considerably less class, of course, but still a nice thing to look at.

“Well, the Duke of Disco, the Regent of Rock and the Lord of Love,” the fat bloke corrected. 

The newcomer chuckled good-naturedly, clearly used to his friend’s overconfidence. “Whatever you say, mate. Listen, do you want a hand with the decks and the lights?”

“Aye, but, uh...” the fat bloke, whose name was apparently Mervyn, was ogling a blonde woman dressed in black walk down the main stairs and turn to the exit on the left. “I tell you what, reckon I’m up for a bit of a Mervyn sandwich later, huh.”

The newcomer shook his head with a tolerant grin and stepped to the side to let the excited disc-jockey – for what else could the fat bloke be? – follow his chosen target. Then he turned around, spotted Tosh… and promptly lost his ability to speak coherently.

“Whoa. All right, love?” he walked closer helpfully. “You've got a big box. Do you want a hand with that?”

“No, thank you, I'm fine,” Tosh had her mind on more pressing issues than flirting at the moment. Like how to store the early-coming guests somewhere safe and how to prevent them walking straight into harm’s way. 

She made her way toward the front desk. The guy followed her like an eager poodle. God, were they all high on testosterone or what?

“Are you going to the wedding?” he asked.

“I'm a friend of the bride,” Tosh replied absently, because _mother of the bride_ would sound silly, even though she would be acting in that function later on.

“Well, I'm Banana,” the guy grinned at her charmingly. “I suppose you can tell why.”

Tosh raised an eyebrow. “You come up in spots and go soft quickly?” she countered. 

She put the dress box down on the front desk, looking for a clerk. Banana – and what kind of name was that anyway? – looked lost, perhaps even a bit hurt by her reaction.

“I'm actually the best man,” he declared indignantly.

“Evolution is full of surprises,” Tosh muttered. Now she knew where she’d heard that silly name before; the bloke was Rhys’ best friend. And his best man, apparently. Terrific.

“I get to check everything personally,” Banana continued in a rather pitiful attempt to look important. “Uh, the disco, cake, flowers, seating…”

Tosh ignored him. “Bridal suite?” she asked the front desk clerk who had finally shown up.

“First floor, on your left,” came the brunette’s prompt answer.

Tosh thanked her, picked up her box and headed up the main stairs. Banana didn’t follow her, clearly intimidated by her apparent hostility – although she was just stressed, not _really_ hostile. Still, he made a last, half-hearted attempt.

“So do you fancy a little drink later?” he called after her from the bottom of the stairs.

“Sorry, I'm intolerant to vasoactive amines,” Tosh called back over her shoulder, suppressing a grin when he caught the image of him, gaping like a traumatized goldfish, from the corner of her eye.

“Huh?” he asked intelligently.

“Bananas make me vomit,” Tosh told him, walking up the stairs. 

A last, stolen glance back show her a visibly deflated Banana, putting his hands in his pockets and walking off to the left, with a pout on his handsome face. She felt a little guilty for having been so harsh to him. He was actually quite cute, despite all the cheesy pick-up line and the wannabe macho attitude. And then, there was the resemblance to Prince William…

She shook her head angrily. This was not the time to remember past crushes. They had a vengeful Gwen to stop and a Nostrovite to catch. She ran up the stairs, taking two at a time – no small feat in her high heels.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
She could feel her offspring getting closer by the minute. She’d been tracking its unconscious signals all day; got even close enough to the host once to read her primitive thoughts. Her mate must have been desperate to choose such an unworthy environment for their spawn; but perhaps he hadn’t had any other choice. Still, she was a bit shocked; they had been more… choosy in the past.

However, reading the host’s thoughts made the tracking considerably easier. She could come directly to this place – with her superior technical skills, stealing a cab hadn’t really been a challenge – and wait for the host to arrive. The shape she chose fit in well with the wedding party; who would find a pretty blonde, standing in the hotel foyer, suspicious?

There was still one problem, though: she was hungry. Ravenous, in fact. She hadn’t eaten since the previous day, when she’d killed that creature in the sewers, and she had changed shape several times since then. It was a useful ability, but it burned up energy very quickly. She’d have to take a bite if she wanted to deliver her offspring and to escape with it safely.

She entered the bar area, glancing around herself in search for a passable meal. Her eyes fell on the big, rather fleshy human male she’d already spotted before. Now that was a promising sight. If she played her part well, she’d have a rather… filling lunch, and that soon.

The human, who was hanging his jacket on the back of a chair, must have felt that he was being watched, because he turned and looked at her. She gave him a coy smile, at which he promptly walked up to her, rubbing his hands together. She could almost taste his thoughts, filled with lust.

Good. They always tasted best when full of endorphins.

“Now, a looker like you must be on the bride's side. I don't think they've got your sort of style in Rhys’ family,” he said, grinning broadly.

She smiled slightly and batted her eyelashes at him. “I like to put on a show.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Having Sally dressed up as the fake bride, Tosh came down to the bar area to have a drink and discretely check the surveillance devices she had placed together with Trevor and Mickey well in advance. She spotted them, and two other young men she didn’t know – presumably UNIT soldiers – wearing the pin-striped, charcoal grey suits of hotel personnel, standing at strategic points, from where they could watch all entrances.

Martha had arrived, too, breath-taking in her shoulder-free, mauve satin bridesmaid’s dress, linking arms with a young man who had the same dark blond hair as Rhys’ mate, Banana Boat. Just with a little more style.

“This is our fake best man,” Martha introduced him. “Private Ross Jenkins. Jenkins, this is Doctor Sato.”

Tosh gave the Private a thorough once-over. In his dark brown suit and figured waistcoat of thick, golden silk, with a silk scarf of the same hue thrown casually around his neck, he was a damn good-looking guy. Almost too pretty for a soldier. But for the part he was supposed to play, he was more than adequate.

“He’ll do,” she said to Martha. “You can go right to the chapel and introduce him to Rhys and his parents. They’re already fretting a bit.”

Martha frowned. “Rhys’ parents will be there, after all? Isn’t that too dangerous for elderly people?”

“It is,” Tosh admitted, “but we won’t be able to fool Gwen without them present. It was a last-minute decision. Ianto was not happy about it, but in the end, he gave in.”

“I can see why he didn’t like it,” Martha looked around, searching the foyer. “Is Owen already here?”

“He and Jack are on their way,” Tosh told her. “They ought to arrive any moment, and then everybody’s gonna be so stunned by the sight of Jack in a tux that we won’t even have to Retcon anyone.”

She, too, looked around to see if they had arrived in the meantime, but the person she spotted was Rhys’ fat and horny disc jockey mate flirting with a pretty blonde at the bar. She sighed.

“God, that idiot should be in the east wing already. Go forth to the chapel, the two of you – I’ll deal with him.”

“Do you think there’ll be anything left from the bloke when she’s finished with him?” Jenkins asked, clearly amused, while leading Martha towards the chapel. “She could make a drill sergeant quake in his boots.”

“That’s our Toshiko,” Martha said fondly. “She may be small, but she’s feisty.”

Jenkins gave her a surprised look. “You mean that was _Toshiko_ Sato? _The_ Toshiko Sato?”

“You know her?” Martha was just as surprised.

“Not personally,” Jenkins replied with newfound respect for Torchwood’s resident genius. “But I know her reputation… even if it officially no longer exists. She’s said to be absolutely brilliant.”

“And you happen to know that – how exactly?” Martha, one of the handful people aware of Tosh’s troubled past, asked sharply, her protective instincts on high alert.

“My entire family is in UNIT,” Jenkins confessed. “High-ranking officers, scientists, technicians… you name them and we have them. Granted, I’m the black sheep of the family, and they’ll probably never forgive me not having followed my long line of ancestors into officer school, but I still have access to information your average grunt doesn’t.”

“Your father…?” Martha trailed off. Jenkins named a highly decorated staff officer.

“I’ve taken on my grandmother’s surname,” he added. “I didn’t want to be just my father’s son, and since he all but disowned me for my career choice, my camouflage is safe. So, don’t worry, Doctor; I may be mentally unhinged a bit, as Harris likes to put it, but you can count on my social graces. My family was always… particular in the area of proper etiquette.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Parting ways with Martha and her fake date, Tosh stepped closer to the bar, just in time to see Mervyn the disc jockey is putting a red corsage on the blonde woman’s black dress.

“No good-looking woman should be at a wedding without a flower,” he declared – and managed to accidentally stick her with the pin. Tosh rolled her eyes at that cheesy pick-up line, while the woman hissed in pain and dabbed at the cut with her bar napkin.

“Oh,” Mervyn looked at her sheepishly. “Bugger. Sorry. Can I get you another drink?”

“Actually,” the woman threw the napkin on the bar, “do you feel like getting a bite?”

She smiled at him. It was a positively sultry smile. Mervyn smiled back, looking like a sheep (a particularly horny one) as she took him by the hand and led him out of the bar. Tosh watched them leave in relief. At least they were getting out of harm’s way. 

She went back to the bar with her empty glass. “Another spritzer, please,” she said to the bartender.

As she was waiting for her refill, she looked down at the bar napkin, left behind by Mervyn’s date. It was spotted with…

“Black blood!” she whispered, feeling her stomach rise to her throat. “Oh shit, and that idiot is taking her directly to the east wing!” She touched her earpiece. “Mickey, Andy, this is Tosh. I think I’ve just seen the Nostrovite... and she’s heading to the east wing!”

“What does she look like _now_?” the ever-practical Andy asked.

“A pretty blonde in a black dress,” Tosh replied. “She’s with one of Rhys’ stupid friends… that disc jockey.”

“What’s _he_ doing here already?” Mickey growled. “None of them was supposed to arrive before 4 pm.”

“Apparently, Rhys’ friends aren’t really good at doing what they’ve been asked to do,” Tosh said. “Now, hurry up, boys. We’ve a Nostrovite on the loose, and a great number of potential targets.”

Not even waiting for her colleagues to catch up with her, she darted up the stairs at the best speed she was capable of, her gun at the ready.


	11. Chapter 11

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
**CHAPTER 11**

Tosh reached the east wing of the hotel and looked around uncertainly. There were several doors down the hallway on both sides – which way could have the idiot gone? She made her way down the hallway, paused by one of the room doors and listened. She could hear some faint grunting and groaning, but couldn’t decide from which room it was coming.

To her annoyance, at the other end of the hallway a door opened and Banana Boat looked out. Spotting her, he started grinning from ear to ear and walked up to her.

“Hey, baby, if you're looking for my room, you just passed it, mind.”

“I'm not,” Tosh replied quietly, not wanting to alert the Nostrovite; one could never know how keen their hearing was. “And don't call me _baby_.” The only one she tolerated calling her that was Jack, simply because she couldn’t break him of the habit.

She walked past Banana, still trying to find the source of the groans. Unfortunately, the idiot turned and followed her.

“So what shall I call you, then?” he asked flirtatiously. “ _Beautiful_?”

Tosh just about had enough of his folly. She quickly turned, grabbed his arm, twisted it behind him as she slammed him up against the wall. He grunted. 

“Don't call me anything,” she replied, irritated. “Don't _say_ anything.“

The horrible shriek of a dying man interrupted her. She let go of Banana Boat and whirled around, now that she finally had a direction. One of the doors opened, and the married couple looked out, frightened and curious at the same time. Oh no, just what she needed right now!

Tosh cocked her gun and backed away from Banana Boat – who raised his hands automatically – towards the room where the scream had come from.

“Go back to your room, _all_ of you!” she said, sounding a lot more authoritative than she actually felt. “Bolt the doors from the inside and don’t come out until we tell you that it’s safe.”

The husband looked at her a little belligerently. “Who the hell are you to give us orders?”

“I’m Torchwood,” Tosh replied grimly, “and if you want to live to see your next anniversary, do as I told you. We’ll deal with the situation, but we can’t do it when you’re in our way. Now, go!”

“C’mon, Mike,” the wife dragged her husband backwards. “Do what she says. She seems to know what she’s doing.”

 _I wish I did_ , Tosh thought, but she was glad that at least the wife showed a little common sense.

“You, too,” she snapped at Banana Boat, and stormed off in the direction the scream had come from.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
In the meantime, the fake wedding party was gathering in the hotel lobby. Rhys, dressed up in a dark suit with a waistcoat of figured gold brocade and a silk tie of the same colour, had come out from the chapel to check things with Jack. His father, dressed in a similar fashion, walked up to him with a frown on his face.

“There’s still no sign of Banana Boat,” he complained.

“He’ll be fine, Tad,” Rhys replied absently; he finally managed to reach Jack. “Hey Jack, where the hell are you?” he listened to the answer with visible relief. “Well, hurry up, man! The guests are already gathering, and the situation can easily get out of control,” he listened again. “No, they’re all here, but no sign of Gwen so far. Yeah, I know, but we can’t put out starting forever. Okay, just do your best,” he hung up and shook his head in frustration.

His father stared at him, wide-eyed. “Gwen? You expect _Gwen_ to show up at your wedding?”

Rhys sighed. “That, that’s why we’re doing the rehearsal an hour before the actual wedding, okay? We heard from her… friends that she’s planning to make a scene here, and I’m _not_ letting her ruin my actual wedding.”

Barry Williams mulled overt hat for a moment. Knowing his only son’s ex as he did, he could vividly imagine _that_ scene; so preventive measures did make sense.

“Still no Banana Boat, though,” he then commented.

The friends of his son were another point the two of them often disagreed about. Mr Williams found most of them superficial and unreliable, but Rhys stubbornly stuck to them.

“We won’t need him for the rehearsal,” Rhys gestured at a blond young man, dressed for the wedding, with a stunningly beautiful black woman, clad in a dream of mauve chiffon, on his arm. “Ross here’s gonna play the best man. I don’t wanna Gwen and Banana getting into a bitch fight.”

That, again, did make some sense. Gwen and Banana could never really stand each other. Mr. Williams still had the impression that his son was not telling him everything. Not that _that_ would be new. He’d become very secretive since he’d gone to work for Torchwood.

“And where is the bride?” he asked.

Rhys looked in the direction of the main stairs and grinned. “There she comes!”

Mr. Williams looked in the same direction and saw the young boss of his son, Mr Jones, descending on the stairs, leading a lovely blonde woman in a bridal dress. Something was wrong with the picture, though, and it took him a moment to realize what it was.

“That’s _not_ Emma!” he exclaimed.

Rhys grinned. “Of course not. You didn’t think I’d let Gwen loose on her, did you? Sally here is good at self-defence, should she need to restrain Gwen.”

Mr. Williams shook his head resignedly. “This wedding is becoming a nightmare.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Tosh turned around the corner and kicked in the door from behind which the screams had come. Holding her gun with both hands, she entered, scanning the inside of the room with a trained eye. She spotted the pretty blonde – the Nostrovite – with whom that idiot Mervyn had left. Sitting on the edge of the bed, calmly applying fresh lipstick. The whole scene was so… _normal_ that for a moment she believed she’d been wrong.

Until she saw that there was a lot of blood on the bed. _Red_ blood. _Human_ blood. She’d clearly arrived too late.

“What have you done with him?” she demanded.

She took a couple of steps into the room, and now she could also see the remains of a human body on the other side of the bed. The size and the dark, matted hair made it easy to identify the victim as Mervyn. His fat belly was torn open, his lower body one huge, gaping wound, his eyes were glassy with shock, but his chest still rose and sank shallowly.

Oh God, he was still _alive_!

“What the hell is going on here?”

The voice broke Tosh’s concentration. She turned around, distracted, seeing that Banana Boat – that bloody idiot! – had followed her, and was now staring at the slaughterhouse in wide-eyed shock.

“Get out of here!” she hissed.

Before she could have fully turned back to the Nostrovite, however, it launched from the bed with supernatural speed and punched her in the face, knocking her down. Tosh went out like a light.

The blonde, now not the least pretty with those glowing red eyes and blackened, razor-sharp fangs, snarled and grabbed the neck of the stunned Banana Boat with a monstrous, clawed hand, pushing him up against the open door.

“You're lucky, I'm watching my figure,” it hissed. “But maybe I'll keep you for tea.”

Banana Boat would deny for the rest of his life that in that moment he fainted like a girl.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Carrie steered her car into the parking lot of the hotel. She and Trina helped Gwen to get out of the back seat and rode the lift to the ground level. A big, ruggedly handsome bloke in a pin-striped suit stopped them at the front desk, asking them where they were going.

“We’re friends of Rhys Williams,” Carrie explained; she was the best liar from the three of them, so she usually dealt with the necessary explanations. “We’ve come to his wedding.”

The bloke – presumably a desk clerk of some sort – nodded politely. “Chapel’s right on the left,” he told them.

It didn’t occur to Carrie until much later how strange it was that he hadn’t asked for their invitations.

They crossed the lobby floor, just as a pretty blonde in an elegant black cocktail dress, adorned with a red corsage, came down the main stairs. As she passed by them, Gwen suddenly gasped and doubles over in pain.

The woman turned back in apparent concern. “Are you all right?”

“Oh, yeah, yeah,” Gwen panted. “It was just a twinge.”

The blonde woman smiled at her. “He'll be flexing his muscles. Not long to go now.”

She swayed past them with a smile that, while friendly enough, gave Carrie the creeps for some reason.

“I hope she’s wrong,” she muttered to Trina. “Crashing a wedding is one thing, but delivering the groom’s baby in front of the wedding party would be a messy business.”

Gwen didn’t listen to her. “C’mon,” she said impertinently. “I don’t wanna be late!”

Carrie rolled her eyes. She was getting the impression that things wouldn’t necessarily turn out the way their friend was hoping for. But trying to make Gwen reconsider would have been a hopeless endeavour; she was a woman on a mission, and she wouldn’t stop _now_ , no matter what.

“Let’s go in,” she said to Trina resignedly.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Jack and Owen reached the hotel just in time to take their places at the fake wedding. Traffic had been a real bitch, and they had seriously overcrowded the second SUV, with Tom, Lloyd and Doctor Connolly all crammed into the back seat.

“We barely have time to get changed,” Jack was uncharacteristically tense. They were late, and that meant a lot of things could go wrong. “Hurry up, people!”

“We can all use the bridal suite,” Lloyd suggested. “This is not the time for false modesty.”

Jack missed the golden opportunity to make an improper comment, which alone was proof enough how worried he was, and jumped out of the car while it was still almost moving. He activated his earpiece.

“Tosh, Ianto, is everything going according to the plan?”

“Sally and I are just about to go down to the chapel,” Ianto’s voice answered,” but I haven’t heard from Tosh for a while.”

“ _What_?” That was not good, not good at all, but Jack knew he couldn’t afford to panic just now. He touched his earpiece again, trying to switch channels, in case Tosh would be on another one for some reason. “Tosh? Can your hear me? Tosh?”

There was no answer. Jack started worrying in earnest now. “Ianto, we can’t reach Tosh, either. Something must have happened to her.”

“Wait a minute, Jack, I’m getting a message here,” Ianto went silent, presumably listening to somebody on a different channel; then he was back again. “Jack, Private Harris tells me that Gwen’s just arrived with two of her lady friends. We must start with the fake wedding, _now_.”

“All right,” Jack was thinking feverishly. “The Nostrovite will go wherever Gwen is with its spawn, so as long as it’s near the chapel, Tosh would be safe. So we can go and look for her.”

“No, Jack,” Ianto replied. “We need you and Owen _here_. You’re the only ones who’ve dealt with Nostrovites before. I’ll send Andy and Mickey to find Tosh. They can scan for her comms and help her, as soon as they get a fix on them. Please, come here with the others. We can’t put this off any longer.”

“Good,” Jack gave in after a moment of hesitation, although all his instincts screamed to go and search for Tosh now. “Are you wearing the metal skins?”

“Sally, Rhys and Private Jenkins are,” Ianto told him. “Rhys chickened out in the last moment where his parents were concerned; said they won’t understand why they were supposed to wear something like that. So we put one on Corporal Bell and the last one on Martha. But Jack, we really must start now!”

“Give us ten minutes to get changed,” Jack replied; then he looked at the others. “You heard the man, kids. Make yourselves presentable… and hurry up!”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Tosh came to with the mother of all headaches. The nausea she was feeling indicated a concussion – hopefully a mild one – and she was quite certain that the warm wetness slowly trickling down the left side of her face was blood. Presumably her own. Plus she’d had the feeling as if she’d been tightly wrapped in… something, like a mummy.

She groaned and tried to stir, realizing that her head was resting on someone else’s shoulder, so snugly as if they’d been fused together. Squishy sounds ensued with every movement she made, trying to free herself.

“Get away from me!” she hissed at the person stuck to her.

“Well, I wish I could, love,” a vaguely familiar voice replied, and she groaned again. Banana Boat! Wrapped in one package with her in some dense black… stuff. Could this day get any worse?

On the other hand, one should never give fate new ideas.

She tried to free herself again, but the only result was the stuff tightening around them even more. That was _not_ good.

“Don't bother,” Banana Boat said resignedly. I've tried. We're stuck fast.”

Tosh tried to take a look around to make a better impression of their situation. It wasn’t promising. The thick black stuff, vaguely reminiscent of latex, was wrapped tightly around them, over the bed and to the bedposts.

“I can't believe it,” she said, exasperated. “Can you at least move your hand?” Said hand slid lower on her hip, settling firmly on her posterior. “Away!” she added, with a slightly threatening edge, and the hand moved hurriedly away.

“If it comes back, it's going to kill us, innit?” Banana Boat asked suddenly, his voice sombre.

“Calm down,” she replied in a reassuring tone that didn’t even fool herself. “I've got friends. They'll find us.”

“Yeah, but what if they don't?” Banana Boat was working himself up to a good, old-fashioned panic attack. “What if it comes back? I mean, we're its bloody pack lunch, in't we?”

“More or less,” Tosh snapped in a sudden bout of cruelty. She was rapidly losing patience with him, which was unfair, she knew – he wasn’t Torchwood, one couldn’t expect from him to deal with murderous aliens calmly – but his whining increased her headache.

In the next moment she regretted her answer, because Banana Boat started shouting at the top of his lungs, nearly deafening her. “Help! Help!”

“Shut up!“ Tosh hissed through gritted teeth. Her ears were ringing, and that made her nausea worse. She was seconds away from throwing up all over him.

The idiot ignored her and kept shooting. “Help! Someone help!”

“If it hears you screaming, it'll come and shut you up... permanently!” Tosh warned him. In vain. Banana Boat kept shouting for help.

Tosh’d had enough. She thrust her hand down between the two of them, grabbed his family jewels and squeezed them. Hard. That earned her a very satisfying scream.

“That's enough, unless you want to start singing in falsetto,” she threatened him.

“Ah. Ow!” he said in a wounded tone that almost made her feel sorry for him. _Almost_. “That really hurt.”

“You should have listened to me,” she replied coldly.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Carrie, Trina and Gwen found three empty seats in one of the back rows in the chapel. Carrie also spotted the creepy blonde in the black cocktail dress sitting a few rows before them. She suppressed a shiver. She had no idea why the unknown chick would cause her to freak out so much – but she did. There was something eerie in her eyes – they were like the eyes of a snake.

The audience stood, interrupting her thoughts. Everyone turned and watched the bride – a pretty blonde – walk up the aisle on the arm of an extremely cute young man in a sharp suit.

“Surely that can’t be the father of the bride!” Trina exclaimed; she wasn’t exactly drooling, but it was a close thing. “He looks younger than her.”

“Perhaps her brother,” Carrie guessed. “Oh! There’s Rhys! He looks good, I’d say. Boy, is he in for the surprise of his life, though!”

They giggled as the young man led the bride to the front, with Rhys in tow. There he took the seat next to Rhys’ parents. Rhys and the bride smiled at each other and took each other’s hands, while the audience sat again. The registrar, a middle-aged woman of a somewhat stiff carriage and carefully-sculpted steel grey hair, stepped forth.

“Friends and family of Rhys and Emma, we're here today to celebrate the marriage of two people,“ she began.

Gwen clambered to her feet and started sneaking up the aisle while everyone else was watching the bride and the groom. Well, everyone save from the creepy blonde chick in black, who had risen from her seat at the same time and followed Gwen’s progress, almost mesmerised.

“Rhys and Emma have chosen to solemnize their commitment before you,” the registrar continued, sounding as if she was making quite the effort to remember something she’d only recently learned by heart. Which was strange, Carrie found. “But first the law requires me to ask of you all, if there is anyone who knows of any reason why these two may not marry?”

“Stop!” Gwen shouted.

The audience gasped as one and turned around. Rhys and his bride turned around, too, seeming… decidedly unsurprised, Carrie thought. Strange.

“Stop the wedding!” Gwen repeated, barrelling up the aisle like a steamroller. All eyes were fixed on her very pregnant belly; Rhys’ mother was gaping like a goldfish – Carrie couldn’t suppress a smug smile. Like all Gwen’s friends, she despised Rhys’ mother and was amused to see her in such utter shock.

“Stop the wedding!” Gwen shouted again, her voice rising steadily, at least an octave. “This man belongs to me. And here,” she cupped her huge belly with both hands, “here is the proof!”

“In your drunken dreams, cupcake! “The bride returned, sounding rather amused and not the least offended.

What was going on here? Shouldn’t she be shocked, outraged? Shouldn’t she claw Rhys’ eyes out, for his pregnant ex turning up at their wedding?

“Gwen, be reasonable,” Rhys was trying to placate his ex. He, too, sounded weary, more than anything else. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Gwen shook her head resolutely. “Rhys, believe me, I'm sorry. But this has to stop now. You’ve got a responsibility towards your child. Towards _our_ child.”

“Hold on!” Rhys’ mother rose from her seat indignantly. “There’s _no way_ that baby could be Rhys’!”

Carrie felt sorely tempted to agree with that statement.

“Of course it isn’t,” one of the bridesmaids, a beautiful black woman, said calmly. “She isn’t even pregnant at all. She’s suffering from a syndrome known as false pregnancy and has escaped from the hospital two days ago,” she took an ID from her tiny designer handbag and flashed it. “I’m Doctor Martha Jones, and I came to take the poor dear back to where she belongs. I’m terribly sorry for having disrupted the ceremony; it will be continued as soon as we’ve dealt with the problem. “Doctor Milligan,” she looked at another wedding guest, “could you lend me a hand?”

“Certainly, Doctor Jones,” Doctor Milligan – tall, dark and so handsome that Carrie had to fan herself from the mere sight of him – grabbed Gwen’s other arm firmly. “Please come with us, Miss Cooper. You’ll feel much better once we put you back on medication.”

“Well,” Trina commented as the two doctors – with the help of some hotel personnel – dragged a kicking and screaming Gwen out of the chapel – that didn’t go as Gwen had planned, did it?”

“No,” Carrie agreed. “Although you must admit that a hysterical pregnancy is a more convincing explanation than birth control suppressing the symptoms. I could never really buy _that_.” 

“Me neither,” Trina said. “So, what should we do now? Go home?”

Carrie shook her head. “No, I want to know where they’ve taken Gwen. She’s gonna need us, now more than before.”

“Besides,” Trina added smugly, “the wedding buffet has surely been delivered by now. Why let all that food go bad? And we could explore the hotel a bit. It’s a classy place.”

“There’s that,” Carrie admitted. “Let’s take a look around, then.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
In the meantime, Andy and Mickey had reached the corner in the hallway of the east wing. Mickey cocked his gun before turning and checking around it.

“It’s clear,” he said to Andy, who was holding the scanner.

“Shh,” Andy replied, one eye on the readouts. “I’ve got a fix on Tosh’s comms. About six metres before us; that would be the third door on the left.”

They moved down the hallway carefully. In front of the third door the scanner started beeping loudly.

“That must be it,” Andy murmured. “Gimme some cover.”

He pocketed the scanner, exchanged it for a gun – not his usual but one of the big calibre Torchwood special – and kicked the door in. Mickey followed him immediately, only to freeze for a moment when he saw Tosh and Banana Boat tied together on the bed.

“Check out the rest of the room!” Andy said, heading towards them. “Tosh, are you okay?”

“Just get me out of here!” Tosh sounded slightly hysterical, which was a first. She wasn’t so easily knocked off-balance as a rule.

Andy gave Banana Boat an unfriendly glare. “What have you done with her?”

“Me?” Banana Boat asked indignantly. “Are you out of your mind, mate? I’m not some murderous psycho; I’m just plain old Banana.”

“More like a gooseberry,” Tosh commented icily. “Now, get me out of here, would you?”

“Sure, Tosh, sorry,” Andy looked around for something to use. “Uh, Mickey, do you happen to have that oversized Army knife on you?” There was no answer. “Mickey?”

“Call Owen,” Mickey finally replied in a very strange voice. “ _And_ Jack. And don’t come here; you’ll just throw up again. I’m not so far from it myself. Jesus, this is disgusting…”

Andy had the common sense to obey, and a few minutes later Jack and Owen were storming into the room. Owen ran to the newest victim – and gasped audibly.

“Jack, this bloke’s still alive!”

Jack, who was using his disturbingly large folding knife to cut the black stuff away from Tosh, looked up in surprise. “No way!”

“I kid you not!” Owen’s voice was shaking so badly he could barely speak. “The Nostrovite must have released a substance into his bloodstream that keeps him in a state of… of coma, I guess. I can’t find a better word for it. It probably won’t last much longer, but for the moment, he _is_ alive.”

Jack handed the knife to Andy. “Help Tosh,” he stood, hurried over to the half-eaten man and took a stasis tube, not longer than five inches, out of his pocket. “Here. Use this.”

Owen gave the tube a suspicious look. “What the fuck is this?”

“Nanogenes,” Jack answered simply. “As long as a human body is still alive, they can repair it.”

“ _Nanogenes?_ ” Owen repeated. “You mean those microscopic little robots from the far future that ain’t even supposed to exist in our time?”

Jack nodded. “Yep. These were accidentally released during the London Blitz, caused some damage at first – long story, it has been fixed anyway – and thought to have been destroyed a short time later. Turns out, though, that Torchwood London somehow managed to trap them. They’ve been kept in the secure storage of Headquarters ever since and happened to come to us with a lot of other stuff after Canary Wharf.”

“I had no idea,” Owen murmured.

“Neither had I,” Jack admitted. “But Ianto apparently knew. He told me about it before we left the Hub today, just in case.”

“But are we supposed to use them?” Owen asked doubtfully.

“Probably not,” Jack sighed. “But this is Rhys and Emma’s wedding. Can you imagine them getting through with it while one of Rhys’ friends is lying disembowelled in his hotel room?”

“Not really,” Owen agreed. “Still, are these things gonna know what to do with a human body from our time?”

Jack nodded. “ _These_ will. Nanogenes are capable of learning, and this batch has already dealt with humans Let me show it. Tosh, come here!”

Tosh shakily obeyed. Jack opened the seal and held the tube close to the bleeding cut on her temple. What seemed like a swarm of tiny golden sparks left the tube and surrounded the cut that slowly closed before their stunned eyes. Then the sparks retreated into the tube.

“How are you feeling?” Jack asked gently.

“Better,” Tosh swallowed twice before she could answer. “Headache’s gone, and I don’t feel like getting sick anymore. You mean these… things can heal this guy, despite him having bee half-eaten by a Nostrovite?”

“They can heal _everything_ , as long as the patient is alive,” Jack looked down at the maimed man in concern. “Which this one won’t be much longer, so we better hurry up.”

But before they could have done anything, the door opened again, and the ear-splitting scream of a woman filled the hallway.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Carrie and Trina parted ways, determined to find out where the doctors had taken Gwen. Despite everything, she was still their friend, and even if her so-called pregnancy was a fake one, she would need their support. _Especially_ if it was a fake one, Trina had argued. Who could be sure that those two were really doctors at all?

Carrie had overheard at the front desk that the wedding party had their rooms in the east wing; and while she didn’t think they’d take Gwen to the bridal suit, of all places, that seemed the right direction to go.

She congratulated herself when she spotted one of the doors standing half-open. Several agitated voices sounded from within; one of them female, begging the others to get her out of there. It didn’t sound like Gwen’s voice, but Carrie didn’t want to take any chances. She ran to the door, tossed it fully open and stormed the room.

She could see now that the voice from before couldn’t have been Gwen’s indeed. The only woman in the room was that Japanese chick Gwen had once shown them from afar; a colleague of hers from when she’d been working for Special Ops or whatnot. What had been the name again? Tomiko or something like that…

In any case, she looked fairly shaken, her face, hands and clothes smudged with some disgusting black stuff – presumably the same thing that was still hanging from the bedposts.

For a moment, Carrie forgot why she’d stormed the room in the first place, because really, a four-post bed in a hotel room? _That_ was really classy! She had to give Rhys that: the man had style. Or his new bride had. And apparently money, too.

But she was reminded that everything wasn’t all right in the wedding paradise when she spotted Banana Boat. Rhys’ best buddy was sitting on the bed, glassy-eyed with shock and every bit as smeared with the sticky black stuff as the Japanese girl.

What the hell had those two been doing here, instead of attending to the wedding? Was this some kind of sick latex fetish or what? And hadn’t Banana Boat been supposed to be the best man?

She was too curious now to simply leave the room and keep looking for Gwen as intended. Instead, she inched inside a little more to see what all those people were doing there. She counted four men, aside from Banana Boat, plus the Japanese girl, and they didn’t seem shocked at all. Grim and determined perhaps, but not shocked.

What was going on here?

Another step further into the room, and now she could see the other half of it, behind the bed… wishing that she couldn’t. Because on the other side of the bed, in a pool of blood, lay the horribly maimed body of a man. It took her a moment to recognize another one of Rhys’ mates: Mad Mervyn, who always played the disc jockey on their parties.

Mad Mervyn, who’d clearly been murdered in a particularly painful and messy fashion.

Carrie screamed like she’d never screamed before. Then she whirled around and ran out of the hotel room as if hunted by wolves, screaming like a banshee all the way.

Her histrionics snapped the Torchwood team back to attention.

“Andy, after the girl!” Jack ordered. “I need this contained. Owen, do your best to save this guy – and hurry up! Tosh, stay here and keep an eye on the other guy…”

Tosh shook her head. “You’ll need me, Jack. I saw the shape-shifter. It’s a blonde woman in black. I’m the only one to recognize it.”

Jack hesitated for a moment – he didn’t want to endanger her again, just after they’d saved her from mortal danger – but then he realized that she was right and nodded.

“All right. You’nd Mickey with me. I’ll send up Lloyd or Angela to help Owen here. Let’s go!”


	12. Chapter 12

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
**CHAPTER 12**

Andy ran down the stairway, following the screaming blonde girl whom he vaguely remembered being one of Gwen’s friends from her time before joining the police. The girl tumbled directly into the chapel, where the fake wedding had been interrupted and the guest were talking animatedly… well, the few of them who hadn’t been informed in advance about the whole action were.

“Rhys, what’s going in here?” Mrs Brenda Williams demanded from her son. “Who’s this girl with you? Where’s Emma? And what was Gwen thinking, stating that that baby of hers was yours?”

“She’s delusional, Mam, you know that,” Rhys answered the last question first, as it was the easiest one to answer. “You heard what that lady doctor said. Emma’s safely tucked away. We’ve expected something like this to happen, so Sally,” he waved in the direction of the fake bride, who was just pulling a gun out of her flower bouquet, “jumped in to play the role. The real wedding won’t start for another hour – I’ve already explained all this, haven’t I?”

But his mother seemed way too upset to accept even that repeated explanation.

“This is a nightmare, Rhys,” she complained. “Simply a nightmare.”

“Nonsense, Mam,” Rhys said soothingly. “Everything’s gonna be just fine, you’ll see.”

In this very moment, a terribly upset young woman ran into the chapel entrance, followed by a harried-looking Andy Davidson.

“Call the police!” she screamed. “Mervyn's been murdered!”

Brenda Williams looked at the hysterical young woman with narrowed eyes. “Wasn’t that one of Gwen’s air-headed friends, from her time as a shop girl? What is _she_ doing here? And what’s this nonsense about Mervyn being murdered?”

“I'm as much in the dark as you are, Mam,” Rhys answered truthfully.

Andy, who’d been following the screaming girl, touched his earpiece unhappily. “Jack, I'm afraid the situation is uncontained.”

Ianto walked over to them, calm as a cucumber and typed something into a small, hand-held device.

“No, it isn’t,” he said. “I’ve just jammed the phone lines. The last thing we need is someone calling the police.”

“Especially as we’re already here,” Detective Swanson commented.

“Exactly,” Ianto agreed. “No-one will call in or out here until we’ve got the situation under control.”

“Can you do that?” Mr. Williams asked, vaguely impressed.

Ianto gave him a bland smile. “That’s my job, sir.”

They were interrupted by Jack and Tosh storming the chapel, their guns on the ready. Tosh looked around the audience and pointed at a pretty blonde woman in a black cocktail dress who was calmly walking down the aisle.

“Jack! There she is!”

Jack cocked and raised his gun. The blonde woman turned to him – her eyes were blood red now, and her teeth turned into blackened, sharp fangs. Her slim, finely-manicured hands suddenly sprouted thick, curved yellow talons

“Everybody down!“ Jack shouted warningly.

The “wedding guests”, being mostly police or military, sensibly followed his orders. Rhys and Andy restrained the screaming, flailing Mrs Williams and Carrie, respectively, dragging them out of harm’s way.

Jack and Tosh fired. Detective Swanson also produced a surprisingly big gun that made everyone wonder how she had it concealed so far and followed suit.

The bullets hit the female Nostrovite straight in the chest and the back, respectively, but they didn’t seem to slow her down a bit. She turned and jumped out through one of the large, beautiful windows, shattering the stained glass and landing outside on the gravel. She ran out into the gardens. 

Jack jumped out of the window and chased after her. Tosh and Detective Swanson followed.

Brenda Williams fainted into the arms of her son and husband.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Jack, Tosh and Swanson ran out through the other end of the gardens, but to no effect at all. They’d lost sight of the creature.

“Damn, that thing's fast!” Swanson commented, panting heavily. Running after a man-eating alien monster in high heels and a nice little skirt suit was bloody uncomfortable.

Jack shrugged. “Well, it’s a reptile… sort of. They can be as fast as lightning and twice as deadly.”

“But it won't have gone far,” Tosh commented.

Jack shook his head. “Not without what it came for. Come on.”

They turned and headed back to the hotel.

“Jack,” his headset came alive. It was Martha; a _very_ anxious Martha. “We’re having a heartbeat from the alien baby. I need to operate _now_ , before it gets dissolved. Where’s Owen? I could use a little moral support here.”

“Trying to save the latest Nostrovite victim,” Jack replied. “I’m afraid you’re on your own, Miss Nightingale. Is Tom with you?”

“Yes, but he ain’t any better with the singularity scalpel than I am; worse, actually,” Martha warned.

“I know, but we’re running out of time,” Jack reminded her. “The Nostrovite got away, and it’s looking for Gwen. We can’t wait until it finds her – we can’t have Momma _and_ the baby on the loose.”

“I know,” Martha sighed. “All right, we’ll do it. But I’ll need someone to calm her down, Jack. I can’t operate with her fighting us all the time.”

Knowing Gwen’s tempers on a good day – and this definitely wasn’t one of _those_ – Jack could easily believe _that_.

“All right,” he said. “I guess Rhys will have to bite the bullet. Since she thinks it’s his baby, she might actually listen to him.”

“I doubt it,” Ianto’s dry voice interrupted, “but it’s worth a try. Martha. I’ll send Mickey to give you cover. Are you still in the fake bridal suite?”

“Yep,” Martha sounded harried. “Tell him to hurry up.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
She could feel the heartbeat of her spawn, even from the distance, as if it would throb thorough her own veins. It was still strong and even, but she knew she didn’t have much time left; perhaps half of a local hour. If she hadn’t helped her offspring out of the host body by then, the baby, her last chance to procreate, would die.

The thought that the unworthy host would be killed in the process, too, was no comfort at all.

She was injured, and quite severely at that, but it didn’t matter. She’d fed well on the fat human that had been helpless against her powerful pheromones – during birthing time they were especially potent, rendering even other species to hapless heaps of hormones – and the wounds were already healing. If _that_ was the strongest weapon these humans had at their disposal, she had nothing to fear.

First she would free her offspring, and then they would return to the hotel room where she had stored some living food, to give her child the thrill of the first kill. That was how the hunting instinct was initialized in each child. They were a species that lived for the hunt.

She licked her – human – lips in expectation.

However, she had to be careful with the shape-shifting for the time being. Healing her wounds had already drained her energy considerably. Too many changes would leave her dangerously weakened and thus vulnerable. She’d have to choose a proper disguise and stick to it, until she’d found the host. _Then_ she’d have to switch back to her true form to free her offspring and get it to the stored food as quickly as possible. They’d both have to feed well before leaving this place.

It was a good thing that she’d put two of these puny humans into her temporary nest. Her spawn would have to consume both male and female hormones from a freshly killed prey, to develop the necessary enzymes that would kick-start the development of secondary genital glands that allowed it to choose a gender when the time was right.

She listened to the telepathic beat of her child’s heart and turned back towards the house.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
In the bridal suite, Gwen was still trying to fight off the two unknown doctors who’d put her into a straightjacket and bound her to one of the chairs. Her hugely pregnant belly was kept free from both jacket and bonds, and the lady doctor – a pretty, dark-skinned one who clearly thought too much of herself – had pulled a small coffee table in front of her and was trying to manipulate a small, box-like device (about the size of a box of breakfast cereals) into position for… for whatever she intended to do to Gwen.

Gwen was terrified that they were planning to kill her baby with some sort of death ray weapon and resisted with all her might, including kicking, biting and screaming like a banshee.

“Could you gag her as well?” the lady doctor asked her colleague angrily. “The noise she makes would wake up the dead; if it leads the Nostrovite here, we’re all dead meat.”

Before the other doctor could have answered, the door opened, and to Gwen’s tremendous relief, it was Rhys who peeked in. Good, old, reliable Rhys.

“Rhys, help me!” she sobbed. “These people are trying to take my baby – your baby!”

“Oh no, sweetheart, they’re not,” Rhys said soothingly. “They’re just trying to make sure you’re all right. This ain’t no ordinary pregnancy you’re having here.”

“I know,” Gwen muttered ruefully. “It’s that bloody pill. First it fails to work; then it suppresses the symptoms for most of the time. Look at me: I’m like a whale, and I haven’t even known I was preggers until yesterday.”

“I know, sweetheart,” Rhys answered patiently. “It’s all right. Everything’s gonna be all right. Just let the doctors examine you.”

Still suspicious about the doctors’ true intentions, Gwen finally relaxed a bit into the safe familiarity of Rhys’ arms. What a fool she’d been giving up this safety! He’d almost married that little blonde slut, out of sheer frustration!

But now everything was gonna be all right again. Rhys had returned to her, and there’ll be the baby, soon – a proper little family, as they’d always planned.

“They won’t hurt the baby?” she asked anxiously.

Rhys shook his head. “No, sweetheart, I swear.”

“All right, then,” Gwen relaxed even more against her ex. “Get on with it before I change my mind.”

The lady doctor fiddled a bit more with the strange box, adjusting the settings. The machine started to hum – and Gwen started to get nervous again.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Just some medical apparatus,” the lady doctor replied absently.

In that very moment, there was a knock on the door. The other doctor, the man (and a very handsome one, too), quickly stood up and took a gun out of his waistband, pointing at the door. He held it with both hands, to have a steady grip, and, abandoning her instrument for the moment, the lady doctor did the same.

“Rhys?” a familiar voice came through the door. “Rhys, are you in here?”

Brenda. Of course. Who else could it be? Was she trying to make them split up again? Well, touch; it wasn’t gonna happen.

Rhys went to answer the door, while the two doctors put their guns away. Everyone looked strangely calm, Gwen found. It was… creepy.

Rhys opened the door and let his mother in. “Hiya.”

Brenda Williams stormed in, upset beyond help, followed by a tough-looking black bloke carrying an oversized hand gun… he looked like one of those street gang leaders.

“There… there’s a monster, Rhys,” Brenda complained. “That American and the Japanese girl, they went after it.”

“And lost it,” the black guy added grimly. “Ianto sent me to watch your backs.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Jack acknowledged Martha’s report that Mickey had arrived to protect them with a considerable amount of relief. Mickey might have been an idiot sometimes, but he was a crack shot… and not easily frightened. Having travelled with the Doctor and then fought homicidal Cybermen on his own in a parallel universe could do that to a person.

“How's the patient?” he then asked, while heading back to the building in Tosh and Swanson’s company.

“Better,” Martha replied. “Rhys seems to be a good influence on her. He and his mum are with her right now.”

“Jack,” Tosh said, spotting Rhys’ mum talking animatedly to Private Jenkins. “ _That's_ Rhys' mum, there!”

“Then who the hell is with Cooper now?” Swanson asked; then the penny dropped. “Oh, crap!”

“Oh crap indeed,” Jack replied, breaking into a run. “Come on.”

They all darted back to the hotel at the best speed they could manage – and _that_ was saying a lot, even with the women wearing high heels. They were Torchwood and the police, respectively, after all.

When they burst into the bridal suite, they were greeted by a surprisingly domestic scene. Gwen, still in a straightjacket, was bound to a chair, and Brenda Williams was petting her gently, while Rhys paced behind them.

“No worries, my dear,” Brenda was murmuring. “Your little one will be out in no time. It won’t be long, I promise.”

Gwen was looking up to her with impossibly wide, tear-filled eyes. “You do know it’s Rhys’ baby, don’t you, Brenda?”

“Of course, dear,” Brenda said soothingly and started to loosen her bonds.

“Hey!” Tom Milligan protested. “What do you think you’re doing, lady? We’ve just managed to restrain the patient!”

“She won’t need your restrains, will you, dear?” Brenda cooed, with a strangely obsessive gleam in her eyes that seemed to hypnotize Gwen, who didn’t even protest. “She’ll just do what she’s told to do like a good little girl.”

There was a definite hypnotic quality in her voice, too, making them all feel just a little bit drowsy. Fortunately, Mickey proved to be less perceptive to it than the rest of them.

“Get back, you ugly bitch!” he snarled, pointing his gun at the not-quite-Brenda.

 _That_ shook Rhys awake from his haze. “What the hell do you think you're doing? That's my mother!”

“No,” Jack shook off the hypnotic influence with the help of his Time Agent training. “It's the alien.”

“I'm not an alien!” Brenda-the-Nostrovite said calmly. “At least no more than _you_ are. Or do _you_ belong to this planet?”

“I do _now_ ,” Jack replied. “I’ve been protecting it from the likes of you for a century and a half.”

“From _the likes of me_?” the female Nostrovite echoed. “What gives you the right to judge us? What does make you any better?”

“Well, for starters, I don’t hop from planet to planet to murder and eat people,” Jack retorted. “And I don’t lay my eggs into them to rip them open when my spawn is ready to be born.”

The alien who still looked like Rhys’ simple, harmless mother, but was, in truth, neither, shrugged.

“We do what we have to do to survive,” it said. “We haven’t chosen our metabolism – or our means of procreating – any more than you have. I’m not going to apologize for what evolution has made us.”

“Carnivorous monsters, _that’s_ what evolution made you,” Jack said.

“So what?” the alien replied. “At least we don’t torture, murder and eat our own. Can you say the same about _your_ species? Are you not murderers, too? You’ve killed my life-mate, and you’d kill the last child I’m ever going to have, if I let you. Well... I won’t!”

She shrieked, her eyes turning red, teeth blackened and razor-sharp. Her chubby little hands transformed into monstrous claws, and she reached out for Gwen.

“Give me my child!” she hissed.

Mickey, his focus never turning away from the alien, suddenly stepped forward and emptied his clip into the Nostrovite. The impact threw the alien against the wall behind its back but didn’t kill it. It swayed for a moment, then it ran out of the room.

Mickey changed clips, snapped it into his gun and cursed a blue streak in a language that wouldn’t even exist until some eleven hundred years in the future and that nobody but Jack even recognized.

“Have you seen that?” he then asked, switching back to English again. “I’ve just emptied a clip into that thing, and so did the three of you earlier. What the hell does make that cow unstoppable? Is it mother instinct?”

“Or the fact that it has incredible healing abilities, as long as it feeds well,” Jack replied grimly. “Which, as we saw, it had recently done.”

“Whatever it is, our standard-issue guns don’t work,” Mickey, who actually carried a much bigger calibre than the standard Torchwood-issue hand guns, said. “We’re gonna need a bigger gun, Jack. _Much_ bigger.”

“Then I guess we're lucky that we’ve bought the _really_ big one, ain’t we?” Jack asked rhetorically.

Mickey nodded. “Yeah, it worked like a charm on the male.”

“Let’s go then,” Jack glanced at Swanson. “Kathy, would you and Tosh stay here and protect Martha and Tom during the operation? And call us at the slightest sing of that thing returning, understood?”

Swanson nodded, for once not protesting about Jack giving her orders. She recognized true authority when she saw it. “Sure. Go and get the big calibre.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
“Operation?” Gwen, who’d been blessedly shocked into silence by the Nostrovite’s attack, chose this very moment to pick up the tail end of the conversation. “Rhys, you ain’t gonna let these butchers cut the baby out of me, are you?”

“Sssh, sweetheart,” Rhys tried to calm her down, with very little visible effect. “See, this is not your baby, it ain’t a baby at all. It’s the spawn of that monster that has attacked you; it got its eggs inside you when you were bitten, and we need to get it out of you before it kills you.”

“Nooo!” Gwen twisted around in her bounds, making it impossible for Martha to adjust the singularity scalpel properly. “You’re lying! You want our baby gone, so that you wouldn’t have to take responsibility for your own child, you bastard!”

“Guys,” Martha warned them,” we don’t have much time left. The heartbeat’s getting weaker. But I can’t do this while she’s wriggling like a maggot. I could remove vital body parts by accident!”

“Then we have to make more… strict measures,” Tosh pulled a stun gun out of her purse and fired at Gwen, who promptly lost consciousness.

Swanson looked at her with a frown. “Wasn’t that a risky move?”

“It might be, were she truly pregnant; which she isn’t,” Tosh replied calmly. “She’ll wake up with a nasty headache, but at least she’d still be _alive_. Now, Martha, I’ve sedated your patient – hurry up!”

Martha made a few adjustments, and the singularity scalpel started humming again, powering up. Then it beeped.

“Locked,” Tom, who was watching the screen reported. “You can give it a try.”

At the same moment, there were repeated gunshots outside, sounding as if someone had fired Admiral Nelson’s biggest gun in the Battle of Trafalgar. Martha’s finger jerked on the button of the scalpel reflexively, the beam hitting the sideboard off to the side and behind Gwen, nearly taking off half her head in the process.

Martha gasped. “Blimey, that was close!”

“Try again,” Tosh said. “And for God’s sake, _concentrate_!”

She couldn’t believe that someone who’d travelled with the Doctor could be such a little airhead sometimes. On the other hand, considering some other girls who also had travelled with the Doctor, she probably shouldn’t have been so surprised. Having witnessed Rose Tyler’s behaviour at Canary Wharf, Martha was the embodiment of sanity.

“It’s powering up again,” Tom said before Martha could have snapped back at Tosh. “And locked… what the hell is that, an egg?”

They all crowded around the box and stared at the large egg on the screen with their mouths hanging open. It was twice the size of that of an ostrich, presumably soft-peeled, and something was wriggling within it erratically, although a bit weaker from moment to passing moment.

“Gosh!” Swanson muttered. “No wonder she’s as big as a whale! It’s like running around with a keg of ale under one’s skirt.”

“We must hurry up!” Tosh had put away the stun gun and was now taking readings with her little hand-held scanner. “The spawn is dying – and you know what’s gonna happen once it’s dead…”

“Just give me one more sec here,” Martha made the final adjustment and fired. The egg was zapped… and simply disintegrated with a squishy sound.

“Good job,” Tosh touched her earpiece. “Jack? Ianto? We’ve removed the alien egg from Gwen’s belly, but I’m afraid its mother won’t be happy about it. So, reinforcements would be nice.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
She could feel her offspring dying – it was worse than when her life-mate had been killed, much worse. It felt as if somebody had performed _k’leezatsh-a_ on her, the most brutal form of execution, in which one’s body was torn open and all intestines ripped out while the convict was still alive. 

Sort of like feeding, actually, just on the receiving end. It also counted as the ultimate form of humiliation, being reduced to the status of prey.

She’d never felt pain quite like that. The many wounds from which she was bleeding were nothing compared with the agony of her loss.

She had no life-mate, no child and no means to get away from this cursed planet. Some of the bullets had hit vital organs, and while – given enough time, enough fresh food and much care – she might have been able to recover, she would never survive another trip through a spatio-temporal anomaly.

Not that she would want to. She had nothing left to live for. She did not want to live anymore. Not without her young, the only thing that had been left from her life-mate. She was ready to join them on the planes of eternal hunt.

But before she would leave, she had one more thing to do.

She had to fulfil her bloody vengeance on the creatures that had taken her family.

For that, she had to eat, though. She needed strength to kill her enemies. Fortunately, she still had food stored away in the house. She would eat her fill, heal as much as it was possible in such a short time – and then she would gorge herself in the blood of her family’s murderers.

There was no longer any need for disguise. Besides, in her true form, she was stronger, faster, more resilient to possible further injuries. She concentrated and felt the bones and ligaments rearrange themselves within her body… in her weakened state, the transformation process required more time, so that she could consciously register the individual phases of change, while it usually happened in the blink of an eye when she was at her full strength.

She grew at least a foot, her ribcage widened, the prominent breastbone her species shared with the winged lizards of their home planet jutting out like the bug of a sailing ship. Her limbs became long and slender, her sallow skin wrinkled up just a bit, signalling that she had passed the first two phases of her life. The lower part of her face lengthened, almost to a snout, the two halves of the back of her skull, protecting the two identical halves of her brain by especially thick bone plates, became much more prominent. Her large, bulbous eyes emerged from her face like two car lamps, her blackened fangs dropped. Razor-sharp, curved talons emerged from the tips of her fingers, three on each hand.

Finally, she was herself again. What she was meant to be: a predator, made for the hunt.

Keeping in the shadows as much as it was possible, the last surviving Nostrovite headed for the house to perform her final hunt.


	13. Chapter 13

**CHAPTER 13**

Owen remained alone in the hotel room with the half-eaten, yet miraculously still breathing bloke and the idiot Prince William look-alike, who had been chosen to be Rhys’ best man. He was also presumably Rhys’ best mate, which, in Owen’s opinion, shed a very poor light at Rhys’ taste in friends.

Of course, Rhys was the bloke who’d been madly enough in love with _Gwen_ to having asked her to marry him, less than a year ago. Down on one knee, if rumours could be believed. Fortunately for him, Gwen had already had her eyes on what she had considered a much better catch and said _no_.

A lucky escape in the last second, if anyone asked Owen – not that many people _would_.

He shook his head, forcing his scattered thoughts back to the problem at his hands. He had a patient to treat, with a method he had never tried to use before – a method that he had only read in confidential medical files before, in fact.

“And people wonder why I gave up treating patients,” he muttered to himself, making a mental note to drill Jack about the origins of the nanogenes, eventually. 

Not that he _really_ hoped to get a straightforward answer out of their fearless Field Commander, but a bloke could at least try, right?

Unfortunately, the Rhys’ idiot friend seemed to believe that Owen was actually talking to _him_ … for whatever reason.

“What are you doing here then, if you ain’t treating patients no more?” he demanded angrily.

Owen gave him a flat look.

“Trying to save idiots like you who can never do what they’re told to do,” he snapped.

Banana Boat looked at him suspiciously. “You can do that?”

“Not me,” Owen carefully removed the seal from the stasis tube, and the golden sparks swarmed out again. “These little pigs are gonna do it… or so I hope.”

“You _hope_?” Banana Boat repeated. “You ain’t sure, though?”

“How the fuck could I be sure?” Owen exploded. “I’ve never worked with nanogenes before, so shut up and let me focus, unless you want your friend here to wake up… well, creatively rebuilt.”

Banana Boat shut up immediately, thank God. Owen bit his lip, holding the opened stasis tube above the horribly maimed man with slightly trembling hands and prayed that the slight tremors wouldn’t matter. 

The tiny golden sparks seemed to hesitate for a moment. Then they descended on the victim and appeared to be absorbed by the torn and still bleeding body.

“What now?” Banana Boat asked uncertainly.

Owen shrugged. “Now we wait.”

"For how long?”

“As long as it takes,”

“B-but they healed that cute chick at once,” Banana Boat argued.

Owen rolled his eyes. “Tosh had a cut on her forehead; possibly a concussion, too. _This_ guy got disembowelled and partially eaten. There’s a difference, in case you haven’t realized it.”

Banana Boat became distinctly green around the gills from the reminder. He had steadfastly avoided looking at his injured friend after the first, accidental glance – not that Owen would blame him. The sight wasn’t pretty. Even after all his years at A & E and with Torchwood, respectively, he needed all his willpower not to become sick.

At least Jack’s little subatomic robots were doing their job nicely enough. Working inside the injured man’s body, they were invisible at the moment, but the injuries were healing markedly, Flesh was knitting and skin was growing over it almost as in some slow-motion picture.

“How long will it take until he heals completely?” Banana Boat asked again, risking a look from the corner of one eye and starting to believe, however tentatively, that healing _would_ be possible in the first place.

Owen shrugged. “Damn if I know. It takes as long as it takes.” There was a banging on the door, and he swore. “Whoever it is, send them on their way. The last thing we need is some other idiot seeing this bloke in the condition he still is.”

Banana Boat nodded in agreement and went to answer the door, relieved to have something – _anything_ – to do. In the next moment, he flew across the room, hit the wall opposite the door and slumped onto the floor, unconsciously.

Owen looked up from his patient, right into the blood red eyes of the six-foot reptile with the blackened fangs and the long, curved, razor-sharp yellow talons.

“Oh, shit!” he muttered in resignation. “Just what I needed to make an already wonderful day perfect.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Carrie was still shaking when a handsome young man in a sharp suit escorted her to the next best stuffed armchair and handed her a glass of champagne.

“Here, drink this,” he said. “This will help. You’ve had a bad fright, haven’ you?”

He had a lilting Welsh accent, not quite as broad as Gwen’s; much lovelier, in truth. Carrie sipped on her drink obediently. He’d been right; her nerves really needed it.

“We have to call the police,” she insisted. “A man’s been murdered here!”

“Not murdered;” badly injured, though,” he corrected gently. “Don’t worry; police and ambulance have already been called. Why don’t you rest here a bit while we take care of the problem?”

Carrie nodded in agreement. He was making a lot of sense, actually. She felt so pleasantly warm and heavy, all of a sudden. Yes, resting a bit would be nice. Just until they found Gwen… By the third nod, she was already sound asleep.

“It’s amazing what Level Six Retcon mixed with champagne can do,” Ianto commented to Sally, who grinned like a maniac. Then he turned to Doctor Connelly, also supremely elegant in her evening dress. “Angie, you can call in the ambulance now. Martha has successfully removed the alien egg, but Gwen needs to remain under observation, at least until we see how Retcon will work on her _this_ time.”

“What if she remains unaffected, though?” Doctor Connolly asked in concern. “They can’t keep her in the secure wing of _Providence Park_ forever. It’s a psychiatric hospital, not a high-security prison.”

“I hope for her that she won’t remember,” Ianto replied grimly. “Otherwise we’d only have two chances: Flat Holm or a UNIT prison. She knows too much to be allowed to run free. Especially with an unstable personality like hers.”

“She hasn’t done anything that would warrant being held in prison,” Doctor Connolly pointed out. “Nothing beyond being selfish and stupid.”

“Those traits of her have caused the deaths of at least a dozen people since she joined Torchwood,” Ianto reminded her. “Believe or not, if I sent UNIT the respective files, they’d be more than happy to lock her up infinitely, just to keep the population safe. But as I’m not entirely without guilt when it comes to endangering people by ignorance, I’d avoid _that_ step if I can. The same’s true for Flat Holm. The patients there have suffered enough already. Why expose them to the menace that is Gwen Cooper, unless it’s unavoidable?”

“You do have a point,” Doctor Connolly admitted. “All right, I’ll see to have her transported to _Providence Park_ , for the time being. What about her friends, though?”

“They’ll wake up with a headache and false memories about getting drunk in a bar, including the bar bill in their purse,” Ianto explained. “Andy will take them home after the actual wedding. “They’ll be sleeping for the next twelve hours like a log.”

The doctor grinned. “I see you’ve got all bases covered.”

“Save from the most important one,” Ianto said. "We still haven’t found the Nostrovite.”

“Actually, I think we have,” Jack’s voice answered in their ear; they all were operating with their comm links open, just in case someone needed immediate help. “Owen’s just hit the emergency button. Mickey and I are on our way.”

“Do you need reinforcements?” Ianto asked in a voice that was a thousand percent calmer than he actually felt.

“No,” Jack’s breathing revealed that he was running while he spoke. “The only gun that might be useful is with us; you’d just offer more potential victims to choose from. Stay put, I’ll report in when we’re done.”

The comm went silent, and Ianto reluctantly admitted that Jack was right. There was little to nothing that he could have done to help; still, it went against his protective instinct to let Jack run headfirst into danger without him watching his back. Not that he wouldn’t trust Mickey, but… _he_ wanted to be the one who protected Jack, plain and simple.

Fortunately, he had other things to deal with and to keep his mind occupied.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Owen felt a strange calmness settling over him. It was a feeling similar to the one he had experienced in the Weevil fight club, facing Janet in that cage. Like back then, he knew that – baring any miracles – he was going to die. Unlike then, though, he was _not_ going to die without putting up a fight first.

He had hit the emergency button on his earpiece, but he had very little hope that the cavalry would arrive in time to save him. He did not really mind, to be frank. What did he still have to live for, honestly? But he had to protect that idiot Banana Boat and his patient, who was still in the middle of the healing process.

He was still a doctor, responsible for saving lives. He needed to buy time, for _their_ sake.

He gave the Nostrovite the once-over and had to admit that in its own way, it was an amazing creature. Beautiful even, if one observed it from a purely scientific point of view. The ultimate killing machine, brought to perfection by a long evolutionary process, with the single purpose to feed and procreate.

Without the sentience in the mix, he could have admired it like some sort of alien T-Rex, flawless in its ultimate functionality. Without the sentience, he might even have felt sorry for it; for the necessity to destroy it for the protection of his own kind. The same way he could feel sorry for the Weevils sometimes.

The sentience, however, threw a new spin into the case. Being a sentient creature meant that one had the choice – to kill and maim or not.

Granted, the Nostrovite probably saw all other sentient being as humans would see cattle. But just as humans had the choice to become vegetarian – not that Owen, personally, could ever do that – the Nostrovite, too, could have chosen to feed on animals. If it chose not to, it had to accept the consequences.

Owen knew it sounded just the slightest bit hypocritical, but in the end, it came down to the death of him and his patient or that of the alien. It wasn’t even a true choice, really. Survivor instinct had made it for him automatically.

But he still had to buy time.

“You know,” he said conversationally, “for a bloodthirsty, man-eating monster you’re actually almost good-looking. In a strange, lizard-y way.”

The long snout of the Nostrovite swung around to face him.

“And for a puny little weasel who’s about to die in seconds, you are remarkably brave,” it returned.

It spoke a good, accent-free English that sounded strangely artificial without that special flavour of a native speaker. Its speech was only slightly distorted in sound by its fangs.

“Oh, please,” Owen carefully reached behind himself and found the gun he had laid aside to treat Mervyn. “What’s it with you guys and the killing? Haven’t there been enough dead people already? Just how much do you need to eat on a single day? By the rate you’ve been going through victims, you’d render a small planet unpopulated within the week!”

“It is – _was_ – spawning time,” the Nostrovite replied, clearly not minding to play a bit with its prey before killing it. “And shape-shifting costs a lot of energy that needs to be replenished. Your life-force and that of the other,” it gestured with a clawed hand towards the unconscious Banana Boat, “will keep me safe long enough to get out of here.”

“And then what?” Owen asked sarcastically. “Book a ticket for the Space Shuttle? Find a ride through he Rift?”

“No,” the alien said. “There’s no point. You’ve killed my life-mate and the last of my spawn. Without them, I’m nothing. I’ve got no future, no purpose. But I’ll still have many cycles to stay on this miserable, backwater planet and punish your kind for the death of my family.”

Owen shook his head sorrowfully.

“And I was _almost_ starting to feel sorry for you,” he grabbed the gun with both hands and emptied the clip into the Nostrovite, half-expecting the bullets to bounce back from the scales.

Scales that the Nostrovite apparently didn’t have. The bullets tore its chest open, but – like before – they weren’t enough to kill it, not even in its current, weakened state. On the contrary; the pain seemed to drive it positively mad.

“You’re a bad, bad boy!” it screeched, raising its monstrous, clawed hands in a bizarre imitation of a karate defence position. “And you know what bad boys get?”

Owen frantically tried to find a new clip in his pockets – and failed. The Nostrovite launched into an attack, and Owen was just about to expect a nasty and very painful death when there was a sound like that of a warship’s gun from the Middle Ages. The alien literally exploded right into his face, splattering its guts all over him.

It was the most disgusting thing he had ever had on him – and that included the dead alien slime monster three years previously. Wiping the black Nostrovite blood from his eyes, he was nonetheless deliriously happy to see a manically grinning Mickey standing in the doorway, holding a big, badass, smoking gun.

 _The_ Big Gun of Torchwood, as it was called. The one that could kill practically everything, even Daleks or Cybermen, after the last modifications. Which was the reason why they usually kept it in separate pieces in the Secure Archives.

“How’s that for a shape shift?” Mickey chuckled, heading towards them to see if they were still in one piece, each.

“Thanks, man,” Owen said with more feeling he had managed to come up with for a _very_ long time.

Mickey grinned at him. “All part of the service: Mickey Smith, saving the Earth on a regular basis,” he looked at the two unconscious men in the room. “Are they all right?”

“More or less,” Owen replied. ”Prince William here’s just knocked out. As for my patient… it’s up to the nanogenes.”

“They’ll heal him,” Jack stepped into the hotel room, quickly assessing the situation. “They’re insistent little buggers. Hey, Owen, the whole evil dead look is good on you.”

Owen gave him a poisonous look. “Up yours, Harkness. You better report in to Teaboy, though; he oughtta get nervous by now.”

“You’re right,” Jack touched his earpiece. “Ianto? Jack here. The Nostrovite has been dealt with. We can go on with the actual wedding as planned – assuming, the best man doesn’t have a concussion, and Owen manages to get cleaned up in time.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
The bridal party for the true wedding was markedly different from the fake one just two hours previously, Jack noted in satisfaction. This time, the chapel was full of real guests, mostly friends and family of Rhys, or Torchwood-related acquaintances. Good. He wanted Emma, at whom he had come to look like at his own daughter, to have the best wedding of the century.

Once again, Rhys was waiting for his bride – this time for the true one – in the company of his parents. Mr. Williams, a distinguished, elderly gentleman, looked quite smashing in his dark suit, gold-patterned red waistcoat and yellow tie. His dark eyes peeked suspiciously out over his wire-rimmed glasses, as if expecting something horrible to happen any time again.

Rhys patted his father’s arms encouragingly. He hoped they would _not_ have to Retcon his parents afterwards. After all, they had only seen Gwen’s stupid scene, not the Nostrovite itself. It would be a shame if they had to forget the wedding. His mother had been so looking forward to this event!

He looked at his short, rotund mother with tolerant fondness. She had been so proud, coming home with his fairly horrible turquoise costume, with the black hat and the black-and-turquoise patterned scarf that went with it. _A true Richarte model_ , she had kept repeating. Rhys had the nagging suspicion that _Monsieur_ Richarte had nothing to do with the design of this… this horror made textile, but did not want to destroy his mother’s illusions. If they made her happy…

All thoughts concerning his mother’s fashion sense were gone, though, at the moment in which he caught the first glimpse of his bride.

Even a man who – like Jack, for example – had lived for a long time and seen a great many beautiful girls, had to admit that Emma was absolutely stunning as a bride. Her dress was made of white satin and lace, completely shoulder free and form-fitting to the waist, where it started to flare out wide, sweeping the floor. The bareness of her arms and shoulders was balanced out by elbow-long satin gloves. White satin sandals wit three-inch-high, satin-covered heels completed the simple yet elegant attire.

She had put up her strawberry blonde hair in a loose French knot; a hairdo that accentuated the graceful sweep of her long neck. Instead of a headpiece, she wore a little satin pillbox hat with a feather on the left side and a birdcage veil that only partially obscured her face, reaching just under the chin. Her moderate jewellery consisted of a clear crystal rhinestone choker and a pair of tear-shaped crystal pearl clips. Her bouquet was made of white rosebuds.

Since she had no living family left, it fell to Ianto to play the role of the father of the bride. He was wearing his sharpest suit, with the same red-patterned gold silk waistcoat as Rhys, Mr. Williams and Banana Boat; it had been pre-arranged that the men of both families would wear a similar attire, but Ianto looked best in it by far, in Jack’s opinion.

But again, few men could compete with Ianto Jones in a sharp suit.

Before them came the flower girls, Ianto’s blonde little niece, Mica, and Swanson’s daughter, Neesha, clad in a dream of mauve chiffon, spreading rose petals in front of the bride, followed by Mica’s brother, Daffy, who was carrying the rings on a velvet cushion. After them came the bridesmaids, in dresses similar to that of the bride, only in mauve. It was a lovely, lovely sight.

Ianto led Emma to Rhys, folded back the veil from her face and kissed her on the forehead before laying her hand into Rhys’ and stepping back next to Tosh. The registrar, this time the true one, came forth and began her official speech.

“Friends and family of Rhys and Emma, we're here today to celebrate the marriage of two people,“ she began, smiling at the bridal couple in an almost motherly manner. “Rhys and Emma have chosen to solemnize their commitment before you. But first the law requires me to ask of you all, if there is anyone who knows of any reason why these two may not marry?”

Those were the same words that Corporal Bell had used at the fake wedding – now, they had a meaning that went straight to the heart. And this time no-one had any objections. Emma smiled at her co-workers through her tears, while repeating after the registrar solemnly.

“I call upon these persons here present to witness that I, Emma Louise Cowell, do take thee, Rhys Alun Williams, to be my lawful wedded husband…”

Jack tuned out the rest of the ceremony, watching with a certain amount of nostalgia as Emma put the ring on her newly wedded husband’s finger, and the two kissed. There were so many memories bound to hat particular gesture… and no hope for the future. He sighed; he had learned the hard way that some things no longer came in question for him.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
After the ceremony, a pale and somewhat shaken Mervyn was providing the music despite everything, and after each man present had had his turn with the true bride, people were pairing up to have some private enjoyment. Jack found himself leading Ianto’s sister to the dance floor. She was gorgeous in the new dress Ianto had organized her in the last minute, and the two of them made quite the dashing couple if he said so himself.

Rhiannon and Ianto weren’t very similar in looks, Jack found, but they seemed to have a marked resemblance in personality. Rhiannon, too, turned out to be observant, supportive and quite sarcastic, albeit considerably louder than her brother – which was understandable, considering how loud her husband could be. There was a general largeness about her, originating in her resolute nature rather than in her actual size, and for some reason, she could make one feel safe under her hypothetical wings.

Just like Ianto. It must have been a Jones thing.

Speaking of Joneses, Jack cast a discrete look around (while flirting with Rhiannon half-heartedly), in the hope to find Ianto in the crowd. He had the tentative idea to ask the younger man for a dance; he just didn’t know _how_ to do it. Even in the twenty-first century, it wasn’t a generally accepted thing outside the gay subculture, and he didn’t want to embarrass Ianto. But no matter how much he craned his neck, he couldn’t find him.

“Mind if I cut in?” the smooth voice he’d recognize among thousands asked from behind his back.

He smiled and let go of Rhiannon, so that she could dance with her brother, but she just grinned and shoved him a bit in Ianto’s direction.

“He’s not asking _me_ , you daft sod!” she said, laughing; then, with a half-turn to Ianto, she added. “You owe me for ruining my grand moment here, Ianto.”

“And I always pay my debts,” Ianto replied with a polite smile, holding out his hand to Jack. “Until then, lesser men will have to do, I’m afraid.”

Rhiannon laughed and accepted the offer of Private Harris, now supremely off-duty, for the next dance, letting them move into each other’s arm and sway gently to the music, cheek-to-cheek. This close, Jack could feel Ianto smile.

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

Ianto’s smile widened. “You are.”

“How that?”

“You seemed positively shocked when I cut in.”

“Not shocked,” Jack hesitated a bit. “I was… surprised. Frankly, I was entertaining the idea of doing the same, but…”

“… you didn’t expect _me_ to do it,” Ianto finished for him.

Jack nodded, his cheek caressing Ianto’s due to the small gesture. “You’re full of surprises, Mr. Jones.”

“Good,” Ianto chuckled. “It keeps you on your toes.”

“It certainly does that,” Jack allowed. “So,” he continued after a brief pause, “what _is_ this then?”

“This is me, showing you off,” Ianto replied, still smiling. “Nothing more, nothing less.”

Jack arched an eyebrow. “Staking your claim?”

“Do I have a claim?” Ianto asked back, still with a hint of amusement in his voice. Nonetheless, Jack felt the true weight of the question keenly.

“From where I am standing… yeah, you do,” he replied slowly.

“Good,” Ianto said, his smile widening again. “Then I _am_ staking it. But the rest has to wait. We’ll have a lot of clean-up to do tonight, after everything is over.”

“That’s all right,” Jack murmured. “Time’s something I’ve got aplenty. And _you_ are still young.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Eventually, even the wedding party came to an end. One by one, the guests took their leave and left, leaving the Torchwood team among themselves.

“Time for bed, I think,” Owen yawned, loading the deeply asleep and carefully Retconned Banana Boat and Mervyn into the SUV with Tom’s help. “We’ll load them off on our way home.”

Rhys nodded. “We’ll see you after the honeymoon. Stay out of trouble.”

“Where are you going anyway?” Mike Halloran asked.

“Llandudno,” Rhys replied. 

That earned him a surprised look. “Llandudno? Not Paris?”

“Paris was Gwen’s obsession,” Rhys explained with a shrug. “Emma and I much prefer the holiday places of our own country.”

“I can’t blame you,” Mike agreed. “Wales is a lovely place. It’s a real shame that so few people realize it. Well, Beth and me will be going then, too.”

“See you at work on Monday,” Ianto added for Beth. “If you’re still willing to work for us, that is. Otherwise, there is the chance to forget everything that happened here today.”

Beth gave the offer some though, then she shook her head. “No,” she said. “I’ve realized that there’s so much more out there than our simple lives. I want to be part of that.”

Ianto nodded. “That’s the attitude we need from someone working for Torchwood. Be aware, though, that Mike won’t remember anything beyond the wedding and Gwen’s ridiculous scene. Can you live with such secrets in your marriage?”

Beth nodded again, slowly, thoughtfully. “I won’t lie to Mike, ever,” she said. “But he’s better off not knowing some things. It’s for his own good.”

“That it is,” Ianto agreed. “You’ve got a remarkably practical approach to things. See you at work, then,”

The Hallorans took their leave, and Ianto turned to Sally. “Are the surveillance devices in place?”

Their chief comm technician nodded. “They’re completely covered. Is it truly necessary, though?”

“It’s just for the trial period,” Ianto reminded her. “I don’t think there would be a problem, Beth seems very sober and realistic, but you can never know. If she turns out as reliable as she seems, we’ll remove the devices.”

“Something tells me _our_ bedtime is still a long way off,” Tosh sighed, looking after the Hallorans.

“Yeah, we’ve got a massive mop-up operation to perform,” Jack agreed with a sour expression. Cleaning up alien guts so wasn’t his idea of a good time. But Ianto was their boss now, they couldn’t expect him to still clean up after them.

Ianto, well aware of the thoughts shooting through Jack’s head, grinned at him.

“That’s what I love about Torchwood,” he declared. “By day, you’re chasing the scum of the universe. Come midnight, you’re the Wedding Fairy.”

“You shouldn’t be so disgustingly happy about it!” Jack complained, as everyone moved out to get to work.


	14. Chapter 14

**CHAPTER 14**

The clean-up at the wedding site took almost the whole night. It was close to six in the morning when they could finally leave to return to the Hub, load off all the equipment and store it away. Ianto sent everyone home after that, even the graveyard shift, rigging the Rift alarm to his own, Torchwood One-issue Rift activity detector.

“I really hope the Rift’s going to behave for a change,” Tosh sighed. “I could sleep for days in one go.”

“Then do it,” Ianto replied. “You’ve got at least three weeks of accumulated leave. Take a few days, as long as the Rift cooperates.”

“But we’re already short two people, with Emma and Rhys on their honeymoon,” Tosh argued half-heartedly.

Ianto smiled. “So what? We’ve run the Hub with only five people for years, remember? Trevor, Sally and Mickey will be on emergency call, just in case, and if there’s an alarm that turns out to be something big, I’ll call the rest of you in, too. I promise. If there isn’t, Jack and I can handle things on our own. It won’t be the first time.”

“I can stay if you need me,” Martha offered, but Ianto shook his head.

“Thank you, but it’s not necessary. Besides, I have the feeling that Colonel Mace is going to keep you busy for the next couple of days. We’ve utilized your time a lot lately, and let’s face it, you work for _him_ in the first place, not for us.”

“There’s that,” Martha admitted ruefully. “Well, I’ll be off then. Take care, Ianto, and give me a call, should you need any help. You and Jack, both.”

“Will do,” Ianto promised, kissing her on the cheek. “See you next Monday, then.”

With that, Martha left in the company of Private Jenkins, who still wasn’t allowed to drive a car and thus needed a lift back to the base. Tom Milligan, who had returned from delivering Banana Boat and Mervyn to their respective homes, looked after them thoughtfully.

“They’d make a beautiful couple,” he commented.

“You think so?” Ianto asked with a frown. “Perhaps; although I wouldn’t suggest her to start anything with a man suffering from severe PSTD… and I’m speaking from first-hand experience here.”

“PSTD can be dealt with through therapy,” Tom replied. “My ex works in that area. After her fiasco with the Canary Wharf survivors, she would welcome a job with a better prognosis. Private Jenkins seems to be coping as well as one can hope for without professional help.”

“You were involved with Doctor Fox?” Ianto asked in surprise. “She’s actually a good therapist, as far as I can tell. It wasn’t her fault that we from Canary Wharf were too damaged to be healed by traditional methods. Well, most of us were. Perhaps Martha ought to make the suggestion to the Colonel.”

“Yeah, but would he listen?” Tom had his doubts about that.

Ianto shrugged. “It’s in his interest, too, that his soldiers become battle-ready again. Perhaps _I’ll_ suggest it... to Commodore Sullivan.”

“And _he_ would listen to _you_?” Tom still wasn’t quite sure about the whole thing.

“I believe he would,” Ianto said without any false modesty. “He had been a powerful influence when it came to make me Director of Torchwood. He ought to trust my opinions. We’ll see.”

“I hope he will,” Tom said. “Those UNIT soldiers, Jenkins and the others, they need help. But I’m really drained for today. I’ll go home now. Molly is probably anxious to see me again.”

“ _You_ kept her, then?” Ianto asked in surprise. “I thought Andy wanted to do that.”

“He did, but pets aren’t allowed where he lives,” Tom explained. “We share ownership, actually. He comes over whenever he can, to play with Molly and to teach her new skills. He’s good with dogs. For the rest of the time, though, she’s mine.”

“That’s a sensible solution,” Ianto agreed. “Go then; I’ll pay Myfanwy a visit – as much as she likes Mickey, she gets cranky when I don’t visit her regularly. I think she considers me _hers_. Then I’ll see what Jack’s doing, before turning in for the night myself.”

“You mean for the early morning hours, don’t you?” Tom grinned tiredly.

“With Torchwood, there ain’t such a big difference,” Ianto replied, waving him as Tom stepped onto the slab of the invisible lift and started ascending.

Then he turned around and went to find Jack.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Ianto found Jack in his office, where he was opening the bottom desk drawer – the one Ianto never touched, knowing it contained Jack’s very few personal items – and pulling out a rusty old tin box. He put it on the desk and opened it with a strangely solemn expression. The box was full of photos; some old and faded, some a bit more recent. He chuckled ruefully as he looked through some very old photos of himself in different previous lifetimes.

Ianto didn’t move, he barely even breathed, but Jack must have felt his presence, because he glanced up and gestured him to come closer. Curious and excited about finally getting a glimpse into Jack’s past, Ianto did as he’d been told.

Jack now took out a folded piece of paper, opened it and turned very serious as he looked at an old wedding photo. It was brown-hued, with yellowed edges; must have been at least a hundred years old. Ianto made no comment. Neither did he ask who the bride had been, and Jack was immensely grateful for that. He sighed, wiped his eyes (with Ianto pretending he hadn’t seen it) and put the photos back into the box.

“Have you ever thought about it?” he then asked. “About getting married? Having kids of your own?”

Ianto nodded slowly. “Yeah. I wanted all that with Lisa. The whole picket fences routine – even the dog if it was part of the parcel, although I’m allergic to dog hair.”

He smiled sadly but something in his expression revealed that _that_ particular dream irrevocably belonged to the past.

“You can still have that,” Jack pointed out. “Despite Torchwood, you could give it a try. Just like Rhys and Emma.”

Ianto shook his head. “No, I’m done with that. I still want commitment, yes, but I don’t need the rings and the paper trail and the whole nine miles. Besides,” he added with an ironic little smile, “my interests have changed somewhat in recent years, which makes it a mood point anyway. Especially where kids are concerned.”

“I _can_ give you kids if you still want them,” Jack said quietly. “I do have the… the _equipment_ , you know.”

Ianto raised a questioning eyebrow. “I thought you were not getting pregnant ever again.”

“That was the plan, yeah.” Jack agreed. “But plans get changed all the time. I would do it… for _you_.”

Ianto couldn’t quite decide if he was shocked or deeply moved... or both.

“I tell you what,” he said after a lengthy pause. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We still have a lot of mending to do, between the two of us. There’ll be enough time to discuss six impossible things before breakfast when we both feel sure that whatever we might have will hold. Deal?”

Jack smiled ruefully and nodded in agreement. Then he reached into a pocket of his greatcoat that was hanging behind his back, on the cloak rack. Ianto watched in amusement as he pulled out a handful of confetti and blew it out of his palm, right into Ianto’s face.

“Your wish is my command, Mr. Jones,” he murmured, and the two of them watched the tiny pieces of paper flutter to the floor in companionable silence.

~The End~

**Author's Note:**

> The idea to give Tom the ex I gave him came from watching “Merlin”, where Tom Ellis plays King Cenred. Consequently, Dr. Emilia Fox is played by the Morgause actress and has been named after her.
> 
> Reconstructing Harry Sullivan’s speech patterns was damn hard work. I hope I got them right and apologize for everything that might not ring true.
> 
> And yes, I _have_ messed up the Torchwood/Dr. Who timeline a bit, moving the Sontaran invasion back in time a little. But since this is an alternate reality, I doubt that it would make such a big difference.


End file.
